Nicole Eippers (29)

Wonderful envelope from Nicole Eippers, tmo the Queen of Collage mail art!
The mail arrived despite of the location of the postmark :-)



Enclosed this great Mole shown above, and ATC's: of a Tardigrade, Chameleon, Lyrebird and a Sea Slug. And of course Nicole's famous Flying Piggy.

Ruud Janssen (9)

Sent by Ruud Janssen from the Netherlands, this awesome artistamp. The artistamp is showing Ruud himself and has been designed by Domenico Ferrara Foria, in honour of the 35th anniversary of the International Union of Mail Artists (IUOMA), which takes place this year! Ruud is the founder of this great network.

The artistamp arrived in this envelope, which is an alibi to post the mail art here: there are animals on it!



Funny detail might be the fact that the snail mail snail and Year of the Dog stamp have been designed by me :-) Always nice to see them travel.
I've sent the original stamps to Ruud Janssen, because he also is curating the TAM rubberstamp archive.


Also in this envelope this bright work of art arrived:



Created by Ruud Janssen. I guess it is named bits and bytes, or some other name?!?

Thank you very much, hartelijk dank, Ruud!

Mail Art Martha (11)

Two wonderful episodes of Mail Art Martha's Cattitudes.



Brought to me via Owl & Snail Mail.

As is this contribution to my 'What or whom is she staring at?' mail art project.
'She's looking in the mirror and wondering who she is':



Thank you very much, Mail Art Martha!

Mail Art Martha (9)

I love comics, and those of Mail Art Martha are great. See how Ali Khat and Vermina Rat are chatting. And wonder, with us, whether Vermina will succeed in entering the IUOMA Orange group or not :-)

Created and sent by Mail Art Martha.
She added also a tiny book in which there is an explanation about apples, Celts and Halloween. Interesting!



And well-known artistamps on the envelope! The Fish by Keith Chambers (see also here), and the Clowns project stamp, from the collaboration between Mail Art Martha and Cascadia Artpost.



Thank you very much, Mail Art Martha!

Katerina Nikoltsou (29)

Katerina Nikoltsou spool knitted this marvelous cute Snake Snail and I am happy she send him'/her to me!

On the back side she added a nice text and these pretty artistamps:



Inside the envelope an other collage, showing time and a Giant Panda:



All camearrived in this blue anvelope, watched by Katerina's famous Greek Cat:



Thank you very much, Katerina!

Carina (3)

I love this envelope from Carina, showing so many cool animals!

The content is pretty and interesting, too. Among it a small lovely letter:



An other kind message:



A contribution to my 'What or whom is she staring at' mail art project:



A piece of design paper. protected by this little fellow:



Folders about Carina's work:





And a nice backside of the envelope:



Thank you very much, Carina!

FinnBadger (7)

Received these familiar Fish a week ago or two or so. The movie Finding Nemo was released in 2003 and I loved and still love to see it (being a fan of Crush' wise words, too). And recently we saw Finding Dory in cinema.

I was wondering who the sender would be. At first sight I couldn's open it, and I thought it had to be like that: both sides glued together.

However, tonight I did a new try to open it. And I succeeded. And oh, ay... Not only familiar Fish but also a familiar mail artist!..
I should have recognized the handwriting!



On the back side great matching (new) stamps showing Shell-Fish / Sea Snails.
And the Octopus.

So there was an inside, and inside I found this card, with at the back side a kind message.



Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

Katerina Nikoltsou (26)

Here he is, our dear deep sea friend: the Blobfish!

Created and sent from Greece by Katerina Nikoltsou.



The Blobfish came in one of these envelopes:



See Thom Courcelle's 'safety pin' artistamp:



The envelopes' stamps show Human beings:





(I don't know why female dancers need less postage than male dancers?)

The other envelope contained Owls:



And they contained Katerina's contribution to my 'what or whom is she staring at?' mail art project:




Thank you very much, Katerina!

Katerina Nikoltsou (22)

Always a pleasure to receive Katerina Nikoltsou's original works of art and to add it to this 'real weird animals' mail art collectiom. The Snail Mail Snail I recognized immediately, but for my records I'm happy that she wrote the names of the unidentified animals: 'Strange Critters'.

On the back artistamps, among them the Fish dada artistamp by Keith S. Chambers, and Katerina's selfie by "E":



The postage stamp on the envelope is issued in honour of the 'Greece in Russia' year:



And on the back Katerina's (and Athena's) famous wise Owl on a stamp print:



Thank you very much, ευχαριστώ, Katerina!

Claudia / Creative Shell

On instagram of course I get attracted by Snail pictures, of Mail Snail, common Snails and all kinds of Snails more.
One very interesting snaily account is Snail a Day. I was so lucky to exchange snail mail with the creator, Claudia from Scotland. She drew me this wonderful Snail party. Besides the Snails, you also can see Worms and Bees being happy!

Also the envelope is great:



Inside the envelope, among a kind message and more pictures, Claudia added these wonderful Snail photos:







Thank you very much, Claudia!