annarack jewels

   My talented and very patient friend, Anna Jane Searle, runs a lovely little shop on etsy. She is an illustrator at heart, whose passion has now leaked over into textile and jewlery design. Since we already trade mail art, I though it’d also be fun to trade from our shops; she happily accepted. In classic Jessica fashion, I am late in sharing the wonderful treats I received from her. My apologies for keeping the adorableness a secret. I picked out a set of hand-drawn earrings! My favorites of the four are definitely the little black skulls and the mini deathly hallows symbols. They are even tinier and cuter than expected! The treats showed up in a wonderful and exceedingly generous mail art package which included books, animals, stamps, gemstones, and extra treats from her shop. Thanks again for sharing your talent with me Anna.

tradesies

One of the many benefits of being a printmaker is the opportunity to trade with other printmakers. Because our images are created in limited editions, we can easily swap prints with each other if we feel so inclined. I have the most amazing collection of artwork from my BFA peers because of trades, but most recently struck up an exchange with a fellow printmaker and twitter friend Elise Towle Snow aka Argyle Whale. I was perusing her etsy shop last month and fell hard for two of her quirky, clever and adorable gocco prints pictured above and below. I was lucky enough to have her take interest in one of my animal call silkscreen prints, and so we traded addresses and the rest is history. I love these new art additions in my home and was thrilled to hear Elise adores the print she received as well. If you are interested in doing some trades, let me know! And to collect some more artistic treats, whether you are a printmaker or not, you should check out this awesome call for submissions from one of my favorite non-profit print studios, Alberta Printmakers aka A/P. Every year they do this “postcard” exchange: send in ten 4 x 6 limited edition prints or ten 4 x 6 one of a kind works of art (just no digital reproductions), and have your work included in an awesome exhibition. When it’s over A/P will keep 2 for fundraising or archives while 8 random postcards from other participants will be mailed back to you. Happy trading!

spoiled at the mailbox

Another week has flown by and as always, many creative envelopes have come and gone… so without further ado, here’s another tasty mail art post coming at you… First on the docket, is a very special package I sent off to the UK for Jules Young (aka @muddleduck). The sweetheart e-mailed me about purchasing some of my buttons that I had posted about earlier. My etsy shop isn’t open yet, but I was more than happy to fill this order! She picked a dozen of her favorite buttons, and I sent them along with the mail art I owed her.Someone else finding buttons in the mail was my very good friend Nick Ooysten, who is the king of restaurant flare (if you haven’t seen office space, GO WATCH IT NOW). For the past 3 summers while working at the Scotty Burger, he has worn a golf hat adorned with pins. Each year his “flare” grows, as more and more people (including myself) have gotten in the habit of gifting him badges for his hat. So, what better way to kick off his return to another summer grilling season than with a brand-new set of one-of-a kind buttons! @andytgeezer has this blog called my real wall. He says “I got fed up of posts on my facebook wall, so I thought I’d close my facebook account and get back to my blogging roots. So I set this site up to receive REAL post. From REAL people.” FUN! I was happy to send Andy a maple leaf plastered Where’s Waldo postcard (who I’ve been informed is knwon as Wally in the UK). Andy also happens to be a newlywed, CONGRATS!My little zine finally arrived on Katriona Chapman‘s (aka @katchapman) doorstep, although I have no idea why took it so long. However, I’m very happy it made it there safely, because I got Kat’s lovely trade in the mail last week. A set of her stickers printed by moo, a small illustration print with a note scrawled on the back and a super cool self-illustrated coloring book! Gotta love interactive art; it was a fun piece to discover. Melanie Chadwick‘s (aka @meelybeeblog) zine trade also arrived. She is an avid tea lover and inside a UK golden stamped envelope, were some rad paper goods that were proof of this fact; a hand-drawn zine all about various teas and tea time treats. It is an absolute gem and I’m thrilled to add it to my bookshelf. I was also graced with two tea-lovin’ postcards, one I will of course keep, the other will make its way into my mail art circuit. Also a trade from Helen MacDonald (aka @jollygoodstudio) arrived. She was far too generous in her trade for a zine. Honestly, I felt like I got bombarded by goodies: two pin-back buttons, a fabric brooch, three postcards and a lovely note! Not to mention the COOLEST stamps ever! what, WIZARD EDITION? WITH DUMBLEDORE!? sick.Speaking of being spoiled, Jessica Mack (aka @brownpaperbunny) needs to slow down! We already did a zine trade (one of her book themed zines for a mountains made of fur zine). But then, after my zine arrived in her post box, she decided to send another envelope! THEN, after discussing how we should be doing mail art on the regular, she sends AGAIN! The third envelope hasn’t arrived yet, but honestly, do I ever get to write back? haha. The second package shown here included a suicide bunny post card, colorful animal stickers, a lino-cut card, a fashion illustration and a wee note were in there. My reply to all of these envelopes, including the one yet to arrive, has an awful lot to live up to!Jeannine Saylor (aka @saylor_made) sent a very personal envelope to me. Almost too personal: we’ve been having ant problems (which the landlord has hopefully eradicated this past week) so she decided to send an ant adorned envelope! I guess Jeannine finds joy in my misery… what a cheeky little thing haha. Inside however, she made up for her slight jab, with 9 adorable cards telling me more about herself, sparkly bug stickers, and a really nice illustration of a long row of town houses done in ink and watercolour washes.A long awaited envelope from Anika Starmer (aka @aisforanika) made it’s way from Maryland with a sizable stack of tasty treats. Seed packs from the 80′s featuring old world woodcut images, a funky turquoise oval pattern collage, cutsie weather stickers, oragami, a maryland postcard, a white feather hidden inside a kraft envelope, a “sketchbook” filled with small blank water color papers, and a card printed with an anikaesque pattern. Phewph, did you get all of that? No wonder it took her so long to send this thing off to me; she kept adding more and more awesomeness until the envelope was bulging. Mariana Lobao (aka @minawolf) made her first attempt at mail art and was beyond successful! The second I stumbled upon her work, I was said ‘we HAVE to trade.’ I kicked things off with a wolf themed package and her reply came in this delightfully decorated envelope! There’s so much to love it’s hard to decide where to start, but the obvious choice is the Kate and Will flag, which is now proudly handing in my front window (their wedding is on the eve of my birthday, I’ll have you know. I’m sure it’s no coincidence…haha). Inside there was also plenty of postcards, a sweet note, a Jaguar Shoes fold-out posters, a book sampler, an a/p lino-cut print, a rad bear collage and a colorful bears versus wolves drawing. Wow, I’ve got to add a few of these beauties to my studio wall.Allison Sommers (@allison_sommers) was another one of my zine traders and her lovely reply showed up! Her work is so clean, professional and creative, i mean else who has glossy die-cut bicycle riding mouse stickers with their promo website floating down the tails? So sick. Plus I love the MINI ‘mountain made of fur’ drawing she made for me (I shot it next to a penny so you could appreciate it’s adorable minute stature). Wicked trade. Jamie Maddalena (aka @sendmoremail) is a big lover of mail, like myself, so it didn’t take long for us to decided to start exchanging mail art. I started by sending her a copy of mountains made of fur and she replied back with two wonderful vintage stamp packs and a green rice paper letter typed on a typewriter! So cool. These beauties are definitely going to find special spots in my sketchbooks or possibly even on some very lucky upcoming mail art letters. As a sucker for classic Canadiana, those found objects totally fit the bill.Now do you see the reasoning behind the title? I was spoiled at my mailbox wasn’t I?