taller stack

kathy left a comment that she liked the first idea i had for this stamp and even as i was doing the first one, i was imagining a much taller stack of items. so it was fun to do this one. i cropped off her address in the scan, it ran in the proper orientation along one edge. i'll probably get around to doing some more variations on this one.

i wanted to put one of those Booth-inspired dogs under the microwave. but i was too lazy to research and find an image. so, when i couldn't figure out the head, i just made it headless. not a very inspired stack of stuff. i need to work on this one.

green - ride the bus

serious lack of planning on this one. in some ways, it doesn't exactly bother me. i do like those little people. the very fore-shortened bus made this a hard stamp to work with. i like the signs...but that is a made-up address. most addresses would not fit onto neat little signs.

green - walk the dog

not sure why they suggest walking the dog as a *choice*.... are there that many people who drive their car and let the dog walk along the side of the car? they must have run out of ideas for ways to conserve.

green - clothesline

i've done a bunch of clothesline envelopes. i don't think i ever drew clothes before. i have no idea what i was thinking with that A. it looks like an upside down pair of pants. but, you really don't need vowels....most of the time

green - produce

this one could use a better arrangement of the elements. again...no planning. i can think of at least three ideas that i like better than this one. but, are the readers getting tired of this series? feedback please?

green - rideshare

i did manage to pencil in a bit on this one. in general, i did not do much planning on this whole series. on this one, i liked the fine pencil line and left it. i should explore the use of pencil as part of the finished piece

if i had a small boy who had a birthday coming up, i would use this idea for the invitations to his birthday party. only, i would get stamps with airplanes on them and have the exhaust be the smoke from a skywriter airplane. that's what i would do.

and if you read yesterday's blog before 6 am, CDT, you missed the additional comments about postal rates. so, if you are a mail artist, you might want to check yesterday's post again. if you are just a lurker, *hi*...

green - lightbulb

in theory, this one would be a postcard. but, you would have to add more postage to cover the odd shape and orientation. i scanned it with a green envelope in the background so you could see the shape. i'd use two stamps. although you only need an extra 20-cents or so. i am not sure of the exact amount any more.

ok, i'm 75% sure that the cost to send a square or non-conforming envelope is 64-cents. a very nice man at the p.o. gave me that information. he also told me that the wedding cake stamp was a 61-cent stamp, and that the 2-ounce rate was now 64-cents and the ONLY 64-cent stamps were dolphins or butterflies. so, i went home and ordered the 64-cent wedding cakes online.

you can never be sure about the information you receive at a p.o. but, it makes sense that they changed the non-conforming 1-ounce rate to be the same as the 2-ounce rate. so you waste 24-cents when you use two 44 stamps. he did show me the brand new george washington stamp, that is 20-cents and designed to be the correct amount to add on for a second ounce or squareness. it will look pretty on black envelopes, or if the addressee is named george...but that's about it.

lucky me, i have a son named george, with a birthday coming up, so, i guess i can flood his mailbox with george-mail

green - plant trees

ooops that k isn't finished. i would have liked this one better if i had left the name all white or matched the stamp's plant better. matchy-matchy is sometimes nice and other times not necessary. might find time to do this one over.

green - turn off lights

the obvious way to add the name and address would be to write it tiny along the baseboard. i can also see writing it in a picture on the wall. any other ideas?
i'll be tempted to do variations on this one....

green - conserve water

i wrote the name and address in pale blue marker which does not show up. then outlined with a fine g-tec. i think it has potential, but in it's current form, it is not something i would recommend. i should explore using just the name in water and the address in regular little printing. the name might be more fun if it was larrger and flow-ier.

green - compost

again, not a favorite. it is too obvious. it is on the list to be re-designed. i'd like to have a complete set of ideas for these stamps. the little line drawings are certainly up my alley.

green - thermostat

this is not a favorite either. i will try to think of something better. since the address is not in straight horizontal lines, it would need extra postage. but, i trust nobody is going to use this idea, since it is uninspired.

green - bike

i have all twenty *green* stamps applied to mail, and scanned and set up to run for the next two weeks. that might get a little boring. so, i'll see how it goes. if i don't like the looks of it, i'll insert some alternatives. this was one of the last ones i did and i thought it was rather uninspired. when i sat down to do all of them at once, i figured i would have the typical experience of starting slow, getting more creative and then winding down. and that is exactly what happened. there are several that i would like to do over. some i like a lot and would like to do some variations. most of all, i hope some of you will send in your ideas. if you have a scanner, you can send them to me and i will post them.

green - insulate windows

i'll have to re-do this one , too. it would have been so much better if the name was upside down. it's fun to have things in unexpected directions. i used a yellow highlighter for the caulk and then did the outline with the .25 g-tec. her name is lorelie (i think that's how you spell it) anyhow, the Ls look goofy with the short letters up at the top.

green - tire pressure

so, the p.o. sells stamps and when they send them to you, they com in a tyvek envelope. inside the tyvek envelope is a cellophane envelope with the stamps and a sheet of chip board so that they do not get bent. no wonder the p.o. is going broke. and since they are all about green, i will be sure to recycle all their packing materials. first, i cut the chip board in half and made two post cards. i made them because i needed inserts for those two black and white envelopes that were part of an exchange. i did not use the real addresses of the exchange participants.
and i photocopied the stamps, so that i did not waste postage. this might be my new thing...just making entirely fake mail with photocopied images of the stamps. i can down load the images off the usps website.

not a successful transition from V to i...but, i am going to post it anyway. maybe if i post really shabby lettering, it will inspire the blog-readers to submit their improved versions??? or, it will inspire me to spend more time re-making fake mail. i know few of you are going to respond to my calls to participate...but, the least you can do is tell me how you are sending more mail to other people and how much happy feedback you are getting.

green stamps - recycle

i'll do one design for each of the *green* stamps. i had one more green shimmer envelope. this is ziller ink and i colored in the little bottles and cans with colored pencil. it's gong to be hard to do any more of these that i like better than this one.