Weekend in Review: Report Card

One of the groups I am a member is has been posting swaps with information about their project of sending out 365 pieces of mail art in a year.  So, out of curiosity, I decided to tally up my mail outflow since July 17th when I sent out the first of my requests for pen pals.  I only added actual snail-mail pieces, and this included all the swaps I sent out since I joined Swap Bot, but not all the letters I sent to my niece (about two per week) or the birthday cards for that period (about 50 over the whole year), or packages to friends and family or Etsy shop sales, thank you cards, or other letters from earlier in the year.  When I finished my count, I discovered I have sent out an astounding amount of mail--103 pieces plus the ones I just mentioned.

At this rate, I will easily reach a goal of sending 365 pieces of mail in the year 2013--but of course not all of it is mail art.  A good number of those items are in decorated envelopes, though.  I have gotten pretty handy with stamps, stickers and bits of junk mail I repurpose on the outside of envelopes.

Now if only I would get that many pieces sent to ME! :)

Other than writing lots of letters and running around with Ornery on Saturday, it has been a pretty quiet weekend.  My sister made some 1/2 sheets of stationary for me with a scanned image of an ATC I painted and sent to her.  I have already used several sheets of it, and decided it was a great design and that I should make some other designs as well. I obviously use stationary!

Ornery's sister's birthday is this Wednesday, and his mom is taking the clan out for dinner to celebrate.  I wrapped up her present and made a tag for it, since I sent her card a whole week early... oops.  : /

Ornery worked on our bed platform over the weekend.  Somehow he miscalculated some of his measurements and was disappointed in himself for making the mistake.  He is reworking things and it will still work, but it wasn't "what he had in mind."  I know how frustrating that is, and he is certainly not the only one to have such problems.  I noticed as I was getting ready to send out an ATC last week that I had placed the embellishments on the background upside down. It probably would have been fine, and maybe not even noticed, but it bothered me, so I kept that one and sent the one that was done "right."

One thing I did this weekend was to make my Amazon Christmas wishlist.  My kids and Ornery always ask me what I want for Christmas, and I decided I would let them see and make it easy for them to find it. :)  So helpful, right?  I am going to try to get everyone else we need to buy for to do the same.  It is much more fun to do it that way so we can see what they are getting for their (our) money!  If they send the links early enough, I might actually get a few things ordered and sent to them before Christmas.

The studio table is clean, and I have 12 swaps to create lovely pieces of art for.  Ideas are flowing and it is fun to be in the zone.  That's what is happening this week--ATCs, Rolos, cards, hopefully some fun letters to reply to and maybe a bit of housework.  Maybe. ;)