Mail Call!

Or should I say "Mailbox Call"?!

I am in an altered mailbox swap at the badbaby yahoo group. We went out to Target and found these adorable little mailboxes in their dollar spot.

Each player alters a mailbox, fills it with artwork and then ships it to their secret swap buddy.

Below is my blank mailbox. They are about 6 inches long, made of metal. Quite a deal for only a dollar!

Here are my contents. I made several ATCs and a tag. I mostly focused on the theme of travel. Except for my digital ATC which features one very cool cat! I also stuffed in a bunch of chocolate. Is it possible to have a secret swap without chocolate? I don't think so!

Here a close up of the digital cat. Isn't he the coolest? :-)

Here is the right side of the mailbox with the flag.

I stamped most the images. I choose things that featured postage stamps, letters or symbols of other countries such as the Eiffel Tower. I then filled in between the stamped images with postage stamps from around the world.

I was going to alter the ends as well but decided it took away from the collage in the middle so I just left them blank.

This is the left side. I just love that stamp with the little girl!

Busy Busy Busy!

Boy do I have a lot of projects to get done this month!!!!!

Have I finished them? No! Have I started them? NO! LOL

As a matter of fact, I worked on things that aren't due until next month. Hmm, why do I do this??!!!

I completed 2 spreads in Anne's Asian altered book. For some reason the color in the pictures is off. I tried to adjust it as best I could but it just doesn't look quite right. Oh well, I already mailed it out so this will have to do.

This spread has a fabulous background paper full of asian writing and symbols but only a few show in the photo. :-(

Here is spread #2. I used a piece of Chinese newspaper I picked up in San Francisco. I had a Chinese New Year postage stamp from a couple years ago on hand as well.

The Asian stamps used in both of these are from Stone House Stamps. LOVE their Asian designs!!!! The fortune cookie is from Jim Stephens I think. It is part of a set and also has a blank "fortune" stamp to tuck into your cookie. I used a real fortune I received a few weeks ago. It says "Beauty surrounds you because you create it".

And then there is my favorite dragonfly....very stylized and delicate! It comes from Magenta.

I am in a Bingo Card Book swap. You have to make a book out of bingo cards. I could only find one in my ephemera box and it was a poor copy so I scanned it, adjusted the color and made it bigger. (it was only about 2x3) It is now about 4x5.

I just bought the woman stamp on Saturday. She just called to me from the shelf. She is made by Stampers Anonymous. The "Fun Pass" is from a new set I just got from Close to My Heart. It has all sorts of "tickets"...a very cool and versatile set. The moon face in the upper right corner is from Tin Can Mail. The sticker at the bottom is from the post office. They used to be used to seal the mail.....they no longer use them and my ex husband was a postal worker. They were throwing them away and he brought a pad of them home....this was about 20 years ago. I use them in the strangest places. :-)

I got this girl stamp about a year ago and never used her. I thought she was appropriate for this project as she has bingo card wings. She is from Stampers Anonymous too. I used another "ticket" from the CTMH set. And one of my many cats from 100 Proof Press. I filled the book with cream, sage and country blue pages. I hope the person who gets it likes it as much as I do. That is the hard part of these swaps, parting with things....if I like them I don't want to let them go. LOL

She sells....

I took this picture of the ocean at Brookings last year. I love the rocks of the Oregon coast!

I saw this painting of the woman and for some reason thought she should be walking on the beach LOL

So, now she is. :-)

I used a "pirate map" for my background paper. I made it slightly translucent to lighten the color.

I used a "vintage" frame from Photoshop Elements 5 for around my beach photo and then decreased the intensity of the photo. I added age spots to the photo as well from the crop shapes already available in the program.

The rhododendrons are from Azalea Park in Brookings. They have so many colors, it is so gorgeous to walk through. I can never resist snapping some pictures!

The "swirls" in the upper right corner are a heart shaped brush.

I love playing with this stuff!!!!!

Decos

I sent my niece a box of scrapbooking supplies for her birthday. The thing is, neither she nor my sister have any experience with using all these fun papers and embellishments. So I came up with an idea to give them some practice AND to have some family fun.

We are doing a deco round robin!

I put together the books using their choice of cover colors.

We also convinced my mom to play too. I don't think she is as thrilled as the rest of us though. :-)

Mine is the flower cover at the top left. My theme is flowers. Peyton's is the blue she wants her theme to be Disney (being a huge Disney fan, I can't wait for my turn to work in this one!) My mom's is the green in the lower left with a theme of "books". And the red with cream swirls is Laurel's. She has changed themes a couple times but I think currently is is "colors".

I hope they like these colors since they only told me "red", "blue" and "green". That sure does leave a lot of leeway! LOL