Another one that was sent twice - from Grace

This was the outer envelope that held a piece of mail that was returned to sender. I was out of town when it arrived and my husband liked it so much he took a picture of it and texted it to me. He does enjoy seeing all the fun mail that arrives.

Below is what arrived. The original mailing along with a photocopy of the before and after. The BEFORE envelope shows that the street was 420 - 4th St
And my street is 44th
so - the PO corrected the ZIP to 50309 - which is correct for 4th Street.
But, there is no such address.

Thanks for the bonus envelope, Grace. They are both very nice.

Amy - How did you do those backgrounds?

Hopefully, by the time this pops up, I have gotten the answer to that question from Amy....

More of the bird stamps that I like so much. I wonder if anyone has kept a log of subject matter on USPS stamps so that we know which subject matter appears most often:
birds
flowers
guys
or something else.....

I Googled and did not find an answer.

From Alison

I think this might have been from the December exchange, but arrived while I was out of town. I like the bold flourish on the envelope and how it is inspired by the really delicate design on the card. Keep that idea in your tool box.

Alison's pale blue shadows are colored pencil and she had some pale blue guide lines for the address. As I have said many times, colored pencils can be your best friend.

Florence's Exchanges and Notes

Florence is a pretty regular exchanger. I always enjoy her experiments. I also like the idea of having some get togethers.

I have been pondering a couple road trips....don't worry, I'll give all y'all plenty of warning...


***

Just saw this quote during my sift-and-purge session this morning:

I don't like to think of it as procrastination. I like to think of it as allowing my work to accumulate urgency.

New category under the Labels - Quotes
Every time I find one of those quotes that I'll never remember, I will park it in a blog post.
***

Another quote for my list:

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

 Eric Hoffer 

The name Eric Hoffer rang a bell, so I enjoyed doing a search and learning a bit more about him.

Roses from Exchanger Rehj

This is a clever digital design from Rehj. On the flap, there was an instruction to lift the flap and unfold.
I had some of those rose stamps a while back. They are perfect on this envelope.

Smash Girl

An exuberant envelope from Smash Girl. SHe has the same zip code problem that was on another envelope - so I am wondering if I had my zip code wrong on the list. Sorry....

Grinchy Story from Carol

Here it is early Sept 2016 and I am just getting around to opening the mail that arrived in late Dec of 2015. This was from Carol. I opened the top envelope and found a note stating that the grinchy PO had returned the brown envelope with the yellow sticker over the top of the address. She said - I will leave it to you to see what is under the sticker. So, I peeled off the sticker and saw that she put Columbus Ohio instead of Des Moines, Iowa. The PO must not have a rubber stamp that says *Your city-state does not agree with your ZIP* -- I thought they always went with the ZIP first and only used the city-state, if the street and ZIP was not a clear destination.

Also - they did not cancel those pretty vintage stamps at the top.

There was quite a stack of unopened mail (in Sept of 2016) from Dec-Jan 2015-2016. I left in a big rush on mid-Dec when my daughter's new baby decided to arrive earlier than expected. I stayed until until early Feb - so it was a long time to be gone....and then when I returned there was a lot going on.

Enough jabber - the brown envelope is steal worthy.

Exchanger Rachael - Crow and Penguins

The top one was Rachel's first exchange envelope. The white ink ties the design into the stamp. On the bottom one, the swirly shaped letters repeat some of the swoopy lines in both stamps. The bottom one looks like colored pencil.

As always, I love kraft paper envelopes.

Exchanger Karen's butterflies

Karen sent a lot of mail a while back and then disappeared. It is great to have you back. This is one where the scan may not do it justice. There is some subtle bleeding that is very cool. I'm not sure what tool she used. The lettering reminds me of some of the letters I do with the BIG Copic markers. It's so much fun to make the letters with one set stroke.

Exchanger Thomas

Once again it would be fun to know more about this one - like the materials and the tools.

There is a layer of something raised and shiny on the flower that may not show up in the scan.

Very pretty.

Exchanger Lynne

Maybe Lynne will tell us what she used to make these little flowers. Something that dabs - like a paintbrush. But there are so many kinds of paint brushes. They are nice because the paint is not mixed to one color so there is variation in the purple. The leaves are pretty much the same size and shape of the flowers which is a nice touch and I like how there are some single purple dabs that are similar to the leaves - maybe they are buds.
Steal worthy.

monochromatic from kate

this is from kate - it included a nice note referencing my problem with my head-splitting issues from last spring. this is a very nice arrangement of elements. definitely a steal worthy layout. the postmark is a nice feature. it's always fun when the postmark adds a finishing touch to the envelope.