Happy Mail Art and ICAD Day 4

What a happy surprise I found in the mail box today!  My lovely friend Anna sent me a surprise care package.  Thank you, Anna, for making my day!  

I thought I would show you the fabulousness that I was lucky enough to receive:

This is the back of the envelope.  I love this little guy so much!  He's just too cool.  His eyebrows are my favorite, I think, but his arm that's resting is a close second.  Such a cutie!

I'm sharing my favorite thing from what was inside the envelope first (I think that you're supposed to save the best for last, but I'm a rebel)  It's hard to pick a favorite thing,especially when everything is completely awesome, but I have admired Anna's lettering for so long now that I am absolutely sure that this is my favorite thing!  I love it, love it, LOVE IT!!!  I am so proud to be the recipient of this gorgeousness!  It will have a special place of honor in my craft room for sure!

I also got a beautiful ATC with its own envelope.  I love the brown toned hillside and the winged hearts, and am totally jealous of the ability to make something so cool in such a small space.  Teach me your ways, Anna, my darling!

And then there was this spectacular umbrella gal...I have a special place in my heart for all things umbrella...I wonder if my Anna secretly stalks me like I stalk her???  I am totally digging this gal's fashion sense too!  The skirt and tights, the color combo...this is what I would dress like if I were cooler than I am!  Who knows, with all my internal changes, could I be ready to make some external ones as well?  Maybe I'll be on a mission to find an awesome green skirt now!

Then I got this cute little charm in it's own special teeny envelope.  It says "You are my sunshine".  Why, thank you, thank you!!!  I think this is a scrapbook charm, but I am totally going to put it on a chain and wear it!  Maybe with an awesome green skirt?!?

And then there was this sweetness.  So beautiful!  I think this is just fabulous.   This is on kraft paper, and I am in love with the colors she got going on, especially how vibrant the red is!

I am not sure what to call this...I think they are called tryptics, but I'm not positive.  Maybe tri-fold envelope?  I don't know for sure, but either way, it is super groovy.  I love that paper!

When you open up the tryptic/tri-fold envelope, this is what's inside!  It says "Amaze yourself, dream big, love well, open your heart, sing along, fear not, zig zag, jump 4 joy!"  I am certainly doing several of those things right now...singing along (I've always got music going on in the background.), jumping 4 joy at all the awesome presents I got, and loving my amazing friend Anna...loving her well!!!  

So, aside from being super excited and squealing like a happy pig in mud, I did get my ICAD cards for today done as well.  The theme was "wallpaper".  This one was a little bit of a challenge for me, but after thinking about it for a little bit, I did some experimenting, and I ended up liking both cards quite a bit...what do you think?

The 3x5:

I experimented with masking on this one.  The background is a stamp I've had since 1922 and have never used until now...  I think it looks very wallpaper-y, don't you?  I used a piece of scrap paper I had and masked off the area where I wanted to paint my landscape picture.  I used a metallic Sharpie for the frame, drawing that first, then went in and painted the little picture.  Can I just say I am ridiculously proud of this?  I don't know why, but it made me feel like a darn genius when I thought of this...that's two flashes of genius in one week...I'm starting to get a little nervous about those!  

And here's the 4x6:

I have been admiring people's use of 'extra' colors in their pieces for a while now, but one of the other ladies in the ICAD group (Thanks Stephanie!)  had done a girl with 'extra' colors in her face, and it reminded me of my love for that technique.  Stephanie's piece (and others that I've drooled over) had much more boldly colors, but I got scared and went with more demure colors...which lent itself to a sad theme pretty well.  I used the gelatos along with watercolor for the details.  I couldn't get those quite right with the big stick of the gelatos.  I need to remember next time that I can use the gelatos like paint if I just water them down first...  But I do like the effect that the watercolor has over the texture of the gelatos.  I did this card first, and as I was having trouble with the wallpaper theme, I cheated a little and used it in the text instead.  I just made up the words and printed them out on regular computer paper.  Then I used alcohol inks (butterscotch and latte colors) to try to get a vintage paper color...I'm pretty happy with the result I got on that front.  I really would like to experiment with tea dying sometime soon...I have some berry tea that I had gotten forever ago and it got shoved to the back of the cabinet and forgotten about...and is therefore WAY out of date (we're talking like 3 or 4 years out of date...)...so that seems like a good thing to try dyeing with...as opposed to drinking it and end up dying in an entirely different way...  But I digress...  I am really digging the tears in the eye to the right and the highlights in the other eye...I think that's my favorite parts of this...and the text thingie too...I like that a lot!

I am really enjoying this index card a day challenge.  It's making me think outside of the box and try things I might not try otherwise.  I also love getting to see the creativity of all the other folks who are sharing their work on the ICAD Facebook page.  I am so grateful for the interaction on Facebook in general, because it means I've gotten to meet such interesting and creative people...who then send me fabulous care packages!  BWA-HA-HA!!!  (Thanks my darling, Anna!  I really do love all my amazing surprises!)  In all seriousness, the way these fellow artists support and encourage and inspire one another is such a beautiful thing.  I really don't know what I'd do without them!