Reduce, Reuse, Remail

When I first seriously got into pen-paling and mail art about 8 years ago, I kept every single piece of mail nearly pristine in a little basket. Then a small drawer. Then a giant clear tub in the top of the closet.

Those were the dark ages. Now I have a flawless system that still results in piles of mail all over my office, but somewhat reduces them.

Pen pal letters are punched and filed in binders, chronologically by sender.

Stamps are torn off, sorted by USA or not and put in a bag for Stamps for the Wounded.

Interesting bits of envelopes or non penpal notecards go in a ziptop bag for later use.

Goodies, extra special swap notes and mail art are filed in their own collections or displayed. Everything else is tossed in the recycle bin.

I'll save in depth sorting babbling for another post, today let's dive into some reusing and remailing in action. That pretty pile of mail art at the top of the post wasn't click bait, swearsies. 

I dug through the envelope stash and sorted out a few piles. On the left, an "accent" pile or things that would make good focal points and then three piles of colors that looked good together. 

I glued the paper bits to a piece of 11 x 14 mixed media paper trying to keep things that looked good close together. (I ended up not using the red pile this time.)

A little bit of spray ink, some gloss medium to seal and my very favorite large glitter flakes to add some sparkle and tie everything together. After I felt good about the base and gave it time to dry, I positioned a few focal pieces and cut down the end products.

I got four nice small postcards (about 3.5 by 5)

One really really dumb postcard. I cut it too small and had to add a border later. I spent most of the time working on this project giggling about that damn dicksquid.

Two bookmarks 

One atc

eight word tile things and three inchies.

Now all the little bits that made me so happy to see when I opened my mailbox can go out into the world and cheer someone else up. At least a few of them will be sent in swaps, which will net more interesting envelopes in my mailbox so the cycle may continue.