Under the Microscope

A selection of my collaged ‘jigsaw puzzle’ notebook covers featuring tiny stamps from various countries

Making a collage out of postage stamps is quite like completing a jigsaw without a picture on the box to guide you:

How to grow a landscape…

I’ve not done this for a while so thought I would share the journey of my latest postage stamp collage…

It began with a blank notebook, and 2 stamps which serendipitously turned up while I was sorting through a large batch of old stamps.

Which are the weeds?

Whether slightly flawed or torn or simply too common, the stamps which find their way into my collages are primarily from the philatelists’ reject pile –

A kind of sketchbook

Once upon a time, my life was not swamped beneath a sea of vintage postage stamps – but in these halcyon days of perpetual collage, I have only the vaguest recollection of those times…

Samples, samples, more samples…

I have FREE promos for you!  This month, I’ve been swapping bits & pieces with some other crafty types, and now have some great little tasters so that you can sample their wares.  How?  Simply place an order of £5 or more (excluding p&p) in the TangleStore, and I will throw in a free (randomly chosen) promo sampler with your order, while stocks last.  Spend over £10 and I’ll include one of each!  I only have a few, though, so it’s first come, first served…

Here’s a preview of the samples I have for you…

Postal Patchwork Prisms

This post is really more of a ‘show-and-tell’ for one of the notebooks I included in my last post’s mini gallery.  I was so pleased with the way it turned out that I decided it justified having a little more of a showcase:

Rainbow Postal Patchwork Pinwheel (large)

Rainbow Postal Patchwork Pinwheel (mini)

The pattern began as an expansion of the pinwheel motif on the mini notebook shown right, but when expanded it takes on all new qualities.  The pinwheels combine to produce new illusions – diamond shaped colour-blocks, and an overall prismatic effect.  I realise quilters (etc) are probably quite familiar with how this process works, but it’s a lot of fun to see in action, especially when you don’t know in advance what the overall effect will be.  I love the way the colours play/bounce off each other; would be interesting to experiment with multi-tones of a single colour family, too…

Mother’s Day Postal Patchwork

Today I took a short break from Etsying in order to actually make my mum a handmade Mother’s Day card for once.   I know my overseas readers don’t need to think about this just yet, but over here in the UK, Mothering Sunday is this weekend, so I was cutting it a bit fine!

The pattern is mostly abstract, but if you look at it the right way, it does actually spell out MUM (in quite angular, blocky letters!) – follow the pink/purple from left to right…can you see it?  Not incredibly obvious, I concede, but my mum will like the colour combination, regardless! 😉  I added an insert of cream coloured lokta paper inside, to give it a touch more ‘finish’.  Now all I need to do is get it into the hands of the lovely Royal Mail (before they put their prices up, on Monday!).

Give or take a bout of flu, I feel like I’ve been on the production line for the last few weeks non-stop – same old story: too many ideas, too little time!   See mini gallery below for a sampling of new collaged notebooks (in varying sizes), some very prismatic rainbow postal patchwork, and a glimmer of Springtime in the end-of-winter weather led me back to the Secret Garden, with new zines, DIY seed packets & more.  Not to mention some gorgeous wolfish notebooks from Britta’s latest hand-carved stamp.

Hop on over to the TangleStore & take advantage of a 15% discount using coupon code MADMARCH at Etsy checkout – only valid for a few more days! (coupon expires March 31st)

Vintage Rainbow Journal (large)

Rainbow Postal Patchwork Pinwheel (large)

Rainbow Postal Patchwork (pocket)

Rainbow Postal Patchwork Pinwheel (mini)

Secret Garden DIY Seed Packets

Secret Garden Upcycleable Mini Zine

Secret Garden Upcycled Badges

A Gift for my Fairy Godmother

I hadn’t planned on any further Postal Patchwork experiments just yet, but I had a reason to sneak this one in between some other projects.  I’m about to disappear off to Ireland for a few days to visit my aunt, who is also my godmother (I call her my Fairy Godmother, although I’m not sure how much she appreciates that…) and wanted to take a small gift with me.  So I chose greens for the Emerald Isle (and also because I’m pretty sure she is fond of greens) and pieced together this little notebook for her.

This notebook is obviously not for sale; however, this particular patchwork design used halves of 18 different stamps (which means I have 18 matching halves remaining) and thus its inverse twin will probably become available not long after my return.  I’m also seeing that almost-tree shape as a potential future Christmas card design (perhaps contrasted against a splash of red)…

A circular owl-sound

I’ve been meaning to do this for ages, but finally, at long last, I have been able to find a source for one of those exclusively elusive Round Tuits!  I can therefore now present to you the results of my acquisition: a sequel to what is definitely one of my bestselling zines of all time, The Postcard Recycling Kit:

Within this new edition kit, you will find labels designed to stylishly upcycle any old scrap card into functioning postcards, and extra labels to decorate the ‘picture’ side.  These include: a quotation from Lewis Carroll’s mostly forgotten treatise on letter-writing, a wordsearch puzzle allowing you to personalise a greeting for multiple occasions, a stamp album collector’s page, and a (hand-designed) cross stitch chart for my beloved classic Machin postage stamp.  As if that wasn’t enough, there is also an extra cardstock postcard ‘blank’ for you to upcycle with your own choice of used postage stamps and/or other ephemera.  Click here for full details.

For the puzzlers amongst you, I will soon be introducing a wordsearch-only recycling kit, and there are also more postcard kits on the way (soon-ish), to include blackout poetry and collage.  As of tomorrow, I will be away from home until the weekend, but upon my return, there will be all manner of new TangleCrafted delights to look forward to.  See you soon! 🙂

More postal patchwork (& other fun things)

Another crafternoon with Britta produced lots of fun results!  Of course, my new Postal Patchwork experiments paled somewhat beside Britta’s amazingly detailed hand-carved stamps – applied to Moleskine notebooks, so we can all share the goodness!

As if that wasn’t enough, Britta presented me with a little stash of badges she’s been working on, made from the quality control marks & recycling logos on salvaged packaging (‘Badgified Boxes‘, as we decided to call them!).  We worked together on the presentation, hand-cutting mount cards from discarded packaging lying around TangleCrafts HQ, together with low-fi hand-stamped title & by-line, using my DIY printing kit.

We had a fun afternoon (topped off by pizza!), and I was inspired to carry on with a little more Postal Patchworking the next day.  This one is a postcard, and I’m thinking of putting together a tutorial zine & possibly kit so that you can try it out yourself.

As soon as I started laying down the stamps for the above ‘airmail’ arrow pattern, I started visualising alternative pattern variations which are crying out to be tried.  The problem with this Postal Patchworking – with any kind of patchworking, probably – is that there is an almost infinite number of variations for every pattern, and it’s simply impossible to act on them all!

I’m suffering slightly from ideas-overload at the moment, so am planning to scale back again on PP experiments while I try to let some of the other ideas that are buzzing around in my head chance to breathe (before they just spill out of my ears…).  Watch this space (&, of course, the TangleStore) for the results!