Minneapolis Gnome's Blog (46)

The mail brought a special handmade envelope to me this afternoon, just about a half hour ago, all the way from MomKat in Greece!  Whoo Hoo!  Thank you for thinking of me, Katerina!  Those Flat Stanley the Gnomes seem to know all the tricks....steaming off artistamps to discover hidden return addresses, my word!  What will that clever Joseph do next?  That's a really cool running deer stamp you used.  Thanks so much for the mail!  …

I got an AMAZING brown box in the mail.  Honestly, it was VERY well constructed.  I've made some boxes in my day for mailing stuff, and this one put mine to shame.

But I digress!  I am not blogging about the box, I'm blogging about the fluffy blue tissue inside, which contained within it's folds A HAND GNIT, intricately tiny and well made GNOME…

You love it!  Admit it, you ALL love it like _I_ love it, yes? 

If my job would let me change the screensaver on my work computer, this postcard from Irina in Saint Petersburg, Russia would already be my new screensaver.  I'll be hanging it on my wall so I can still get my fill of this eye candy on a regular basis.

This gorgeous, intricately designed, botanical…

3 Happy watercolor birdies landed in my mailbox yesterday after having flown all the way from Oregon!  My partner brought them inside quickly to warm them up and they were waiting for me on my typewriter when I got home from work.  I was really glad to have a bright, cheerful, colorful image to soak my eyeballs, so I brought it with me to work today.  Before I…

April Rocco is an amazing mail art artist.  Everything I've ever gotten from her has been warm, earthy, gorgeous and original.  I've always been amazed at how she successfully runs hard and headlong outside the box of what we normally…

Back in May of this year, Shellie Lewis sent me some beautiful mail art.  Now that I'm uncovering my mail art and slowly trying to get back into the swing of mail arting again, I wanted to write a long overdue blog about it so everyone could enjoy it.

The large picture of gently swimming koi is in ink, painted by Shellie on a piece of recycled paper I had made for her.…

(Luckiest Gnome in Minneapolis gets Mail art from Thom C.)

Hi, this is the luckiest Gnome in Minneapolis reporting live from St. Paul, MN.  I just received the most supportive, warmest, most politically aligned and world-improving art mail from Thom.  Through it he addresses some of…

When this arrived in the mail it caused quite a sensation at my house.  Two friends and I all had to look two or three times, very closely, to see if this was an actual butterfly somehow mounted on heavy weight art paper or maybe a finely detailed photo of one that Heleen sent to me.  I swear I can see the dust on it's wings.  It's simply unbelievable.  We were in shock…

Really cool mail art arrived from Heleen…

Okay, here goes...

Without intending to, I pushed res’s Add N Pass boekie past the 1/4" maximum thickness allowed for letter rate.  It's now a "large envelope / flat" and weighs 1.8 to 1.9 ozs, so the postage is 1.20 to send it around the USA at this point.  This is because I put part of a bunny in it (a Jersey Wooly named Princess Buttercup) ...and then I put part of a sheep in it (known only to me as Sheep #53 of northern Minnesota)....the rest of what I did to the…

There was the coolest surprise waiting for me when I got home last night, sitting on my art desk where my wonderful partner puts the, “This is mail art and you’re gonna love it so I’m setting it here for you.” pile when he gets the mail…

I'm skipping to the end of the wonderful fun we had getting mail & Gnome Gifts from Carina in Finland, so this will be a "backwards blog" in that sense.  I'm just eager to show you all the little pillow and reading material she hid away in a wonderful piece of mail art she sent to us. It was immediately put to good use.

Now I'll do a 360 and show you the…

I got this envelope from Finn Badger today. Check out the clock, the spokes coming out from it might be the word "February" in a bajillion different languages!

Unfortunately it specifically states on the back not to open it until Leap Year Day.   Luckily,…

Okay, this is AMAZING ART from April Rocco!  I can't thank her enough, I ADORE THIS!  

It's a Hubba Bubba bubble gum box, which she made an…

This awesome art has gone unblogged too long.  For that, I would like to issue a formal apology to the members of IUOMA, you deserved to see this back in 2015 when it arrived.  Stripygoose sent a wood grained floor tile to me through the mail.  Without even an…

It is my firm belief that Richard Baudet is a wonderful influence on the world of mail art.  He is forever dazzling us with beautiful, classic paintings on envelopes which he embellishes with perfect calligraphy.  Here is the latest example I received from him this past week, and it's just gorgeous.  This is the type of flattering and beautiful gift that I love to put up on my…

Just when I was PLEADING with the Universe to let there be mail art waiting at home for me,

Just as I was JONESING like an Addict sick for a…

Per flattering request, this blog entry is about how I reuse fast food bags by turning them into envelopes. 

After reading it, you may want to start saving your fast food bags, paper bags from the grocery store, the paper they put on your plastic tray while eating in and any paper sandwich wrappers which come out clean enough.

The basic jist of what I do is this:

1.) I cut the bag from top to bottom along the seam.  The seam is where they've glued it…