I've been at it again - the 3 envelopes above are all envelopes sent through the mail. (I've omitted the addresses) The top "Fish" envelope was for my Mom, she loves fishing, the other 2 are for customers of my rubber stamp business , MadRat Rubber. I like to do a little mail art as an apology when I screw something up on an order. In both these cases I sold them a stamp I hadn't actually had made - thought I did but soon found out I'd made a mistake. Damn - hate when that happens. I had my whole flock of flying monkey's laid out for a plate of stamps & inadvertently flipped one the wrong way, which gave me 2 identical images instead of mirror images. I'll be fixing that on my next bunch of stamps I make but in the meanwhile I like to send them something to cheer them up. Ladies - thanks for your patience - you know who you are...One of the reasons I love doing the mail art is that it gives me a chance to play with my own stamps & other items of inventory. Having a "deadline" of sorts assures that I actually take time out from all the other things I need to be doing & get a little creative. I, personally am always thrilled when I get something interesting in the mail, which unfortunately doesn't happen very often.
Some of the new products I've added to the store are papers and ribbons. I find patterned paper is a great way to jump start a project - kinda eliminates the blank white paper syndrome. On some projects I may end up completely covering up the paper so much that it's not recognizable. Even though it becomes obscured it still played an important role in the creative process. A good example of that is the flying monkey (Wizard of Oz rubber stamps) envelope. The paper used has yellow ochres & rust colors with a vintage flower pattern and I changed it up a bit by stamping patterns on the paper with a slightly darker colored ink, (as well as rubbing inks over it in general). The original paper color & some of the pattern can be seen within the address frame held by the monkey's.
Rubbing ink over really graphic patterns is also a good way to tone the paper down. The blue paper at the top of the fish envelope was originally white & blue, very stark & very visually busy, I used a similar shade of blue ink rubbed over the paper to tone down the contrast & give it a watery look. I was really pleased with the way it came out. The paper was not one I would have bought because of the very busy pattern (got it in a kit) but I was able to use it anyway & am happy I did.
Some of the other new products I've added are ribbons, my favorite has been the leaf ribbons used on the flower envelope. It creates a great silhouette & adds texture to a piece. I currently have it in black & orange but they can be painted any color you want.
Well, I guess that concludes my tips for the day. heh heh, time to get back to work, I'm hoping to have new set of stamps ready for August & have lots to do.
Cheerios!
