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:

A TangleMail Theme Song

Every day, I send a little bundle of TangleMail out into the world; and because the majority of my customers love stamps just as much as I do, I make a special effort to use attractive stamps on the envelope. There have been some beautiful British stamps issued over the years, and those issued in decimal currency (from as long ago as 1971 – pre-me!) are still valid as postage

The Collage Composition Process

As you can see from my recent posts, my collages are often inspired by the juxtaposition of a couple of stamps that have been discovered at random while sorting through a larger batch.  By happy coincidence, they might have similar colours or other features in common

Stamps that don’t exist

In case the collage in my last post was a little too saccharine for some, allow me to temper that glorious technicolour landscape by sharing another, slightly moodier (and unintentionally darker!) collage…

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 –

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

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!

Pinwheel Patchwork Stampification

The second Postal Patchwork experiment:

I’m loving the way the colours play against each other when the halved stamps are realigned with their mismatched partners!

I’ve sketched out lots of sample patterns, and have found myself far happier with designs measuring 4 x 4 stamps rather than 3 x 3 (or 3 x 4), due to the 4-way (and/or symmetrical) nature of this type of geometric patchwork pattern.

My head is buzzing with ideas but I will have to be patient until I have the stretch of time available to put them into action…