Mailart 365 has moved

Somebody at work bought me a post-it note pad in the shape/design of an apple and so when I came across it I thought it was a perfect way to say it with a slice of fruit - one of your five a day do you think?

This one is now Postcrossing ID US-1223264 and heading to Finland. I've been having good luck pulling addresses of Postcrossing people who like mailart. I've also gotten a bit more active with Walltype, and found that there are more people there open to mailart. And, it is pretty certain that if you pull an address from Walltype, the user is active.

The FedEx delivery guy keeps giving me tips on local wineries to visit. I am not very fond of local wine, but I feel like I have to visit some of these wineries because he is so nice. I think it must have been the "Out of wine. Life is crap" t-shirt I always wear that tipped him off to my wine enthusiasm. It certainly isn't that he has seen me drinking wine at work. My workplace isn't that open-minded!

The colors of this series don't scan well at all. The paint chip is a fantastic shade of purple ... Grape Creme. I have no idea waht grape creme would taste like, but it sounds delicious. There is a current rage over whipped alcohol-infused cream around here, but I don't think anyone has tried whipping wine into cream. I hope no one does.

I have a couple more "Green Apple" paint chips that have the apple stamped on them. They are not the exact same color green, but in the same family. Want one? Leave a comment and I'll send one to you.

I'm going to try making digital prints of my favorite postcards using Moo.com, or maybe VistaPrint.com. This will be one of the cards I'll use and if this works, I'm going to use more of my own artwork for digital prints. I've never done this before, but I've received mailart from others that is digitally reproduced. I wonder if it rankles people to receive art that is not the original?

I think I could stamp paint chips forever and ever. I like the way the fruit stamps I have look when stamped with India Ink. This card is now Postcrossing ID US-1226575 and heading to Latvia.

Found these all in the Saturday magazine I use as a source (will soon be time for the next one!) and so have teamed them up here for this fruity extravaganza!

It is not quite blueberry season, but once it is, I am all about eating as many as possible. When I lived in New England, we always picked our own blueberries at a local farm. I don't think there are blueberry farms down here in Pennsylvania.

Cherries are never local for me, but they are in season now, so I buy them. Years ago we did a road trip on the west coast right at cherry picking time. Every farm had a roadside stand with fresh cherries for sale. It was mostly honor system ... you put your few bucks in the bucket and took a basket of cherries. I think we stopped at every stand along the way. My fingers were cherry stained for the entire trip.

I didn't mean to have the fruit floating, but better that than me floating.

I need to write a blog that features one paint chip color a day. I love clever paint chip names. There is no way in hell Greg would allow me to paint any surface of our house in this shade of pink, but if I could, I would, just for the name. I'd only do one wall ... the one that most resembles a squarish paint chip ... and I'd round the corners using molding and I'd letter the name of the paint chip at the top, complete with the number. Actually, I like to use this idea in every room of my house ... one wall in each room painted to look like a giant paint chip. Thankfully, Greg has more interior design taste than I.

This day-glo pink beverage reminds me of the strawberry milk I used to love as a kid. Yikes. Maybe that's what warped my sense of design.

One of the letters I wrote while on our road trip north was in response to a letter with this fruit scene as the letter "jacket." The letter was folded into the picture and stapled, so that the letter itself could be easily removed, leaving the picture for mailart of my own. Love this sort of repurposing!

Spring has been wet and cold here, like in much of the US, and I'm craving fruit all the more because of it. Sitting on the patio with a huge slice of watermelon, spitting seeds up the hillside ... will it ever be warm and dry enough to do that ....

Last Saturday night my eldest daughter and her husband were at a party and I was with my two grandkids, along with my younger daughter, her husband and Greg. I decide to make one of my favorite summer beverage, which involves fresh squeezed grapefruit. My three and half year old granddaughter asked me what I was doing with the grapefruit and I asked her if she wanted to taste the juice. She is super fussy and I really didn't think she would say yes, but she did, and then asked for more. Surprised the hell out of me. I vowed to buy all the citrus I could find at the grocery store the next day and spend a few hours juicing it.

The next morning my granddaughter asked my daughter, who had no idea what transpired the night before with the grapefruit,  for some "Grammy Juice." My daughter, noticing the four glasses drying on the dish rack, and the tequila bottle nearby, experienced a brief moment of confusion. It was a very brief moment, and more light-hearted than it might seem, especially when she discovered that it was grapefruit juice, of all things, that Savannah wanted. I did leave the juicer up there and I'm sure that with some help, Savvy will be squeezing citrus all summer long.

"They" say our children often pick the exact opposite path as we parents would pick for them. I always thought my daughters would work in social sciences, but both are accountants, and quite happy in their professions. Their politics are considerably more conservative than mine (in the US, "conservative" and "liberal" have different meanings than in other parts of the world). I can't help but wonder if my granddaughter will be the flower child, like the girl in the postcard above.

Too soon for apples, so I may save this to send in October. I knew if I put the picture down, I'd never find it again. That's how bad my art room has gotten. I really, really need to spend one of these rainy weekends cleaning it out so I can actually find all my bits of treasures.

Got into work today and discovered NO new email in my work inbox! Woo hoo! That and the lovely lilacs I cut from my garden this morning to put on my desk made for a peachy Monday.

It is still before noon here, just barely. But, since pineapple is a fruit, and good for me, and vodka is made of grain, and grains are also good for me, I figure, what the hell. Time for a lovely pineapple (and grain) beverage.

We got an odd catalog yesterday, which immediately became mailart material. Silly fancy furniture, made cheap, and marketed in a glossy format that makes it look expensive. The tub o' limes on the table is just so ridiculous. It reminds me of pictures on the very funny Catalog Living site.

I wanted to post this last night, but with all the dancing and drinking at the palace, well, you know how it is.

We had our first "outdoor day" of the season over the weekend. Spent the day cleaning winter out of my numerous little flower gardens. And daydreaming about growing strawberries this summer. I've never grown food, and if my luck with flowers is any indication of how well I'd do with food, we won't get fat on produce.

I took a still life painting of fruit, and added art to each piece of fruit. So there's art on art!