Cards and Letters

I've been making new postcards (above) and envelopes (below) for mail art.  Some of the new postcards are collaged with magazine photos, some are pieces of my earlier collages that I've been recycling in one way or another. 

I've been on a kick lately to recycle various papers into envelopes of different sizes and shapes.  There are numerous envelope templates available online, and originally I was cutting and gluing paper into more standard-sized envelopes.  But recently I dispensed with the templates and am merely stitching up the sides and bottoms of different papers, leaving a thin strip to fold over on one end.

In the photo above I've got old atlas pages, new washi paper from Meg in NZ/Japan, and very old (over 20 years) papers used to wrap flowers up in.

In this photo I've got a Starbuck's bag and a sleeve for their Via instant coffee packets, two pieces of a map, the covers on a vintage bridge scoring pad, and two big Frida postcards that I backed with other papers before stitching up.  I especially love this method of envelope making because it uses less paper than the templates do, plus I don't have to cut the paper before stitching.  And nearly anything can be used to make an envelope.  In fact, I sent a piece of mail recently in a little bubble-wrap envelope I'd received from elsewhere.

San Francisco mail art pal Pamela Gerard has a tutorial today as well at Mail Me Some Art.  Pamela uses the fold and tape method to produce envelopes with the really cool papers she has access to in the Bay Area -- stuff it's virtually impossible for me to find here in the hinterlands.