* A great mail week ...

As I mentioned yesterday, I received the three books from Lenna's Little Book Swap.  Such a treat.  Everyone (and there were nearly sixty contributions) put a lot of love and a lot of effort into each book.  They were all incredible.  Here are the books I received.  By the way, Lenna just listed two more swaps.  Be sure and have a look, they are always such fun.

This is Janet's book.  I fell in love with the two little frogs.  The graphics in this little book are wonderful.  These frogs can't help but make a person chuckle!

Valerie, my blogging friend from Germany made this little gem.  Each page is different and just as beautiful.  I love it.

Bobbie made this wonderful accordion book.  More than a plain accordion book, each page is folded, as you can see in the first photograph. Looks complicated.  The colours and the paper are beautiful.  Inside there is room in on each page for something special ... hmmm.  I'll have to put some thought in this. 

Artists rarely send these books out alone, unaccompanied.  They are most often beautiful wrapped, with some lovely little enclosures like tags, or a quote, or a little card, a beautiful little organza bag and even a miniature close pin with a lady bug on it.  These artists are a special group.  It would have been so much fun to be able to get them all together and have a show.  The talent assembled is palpable.

I wanted to say a special thank you to Janet, Valerie and Bobby.  These books will now be my little treasures.

As an aside, I'm going to mention the blog of Donna Meyer again today.  The name of her blog is 365: Make a Book a Day.  Anyone interested in making books will find her blog most interesting and a wealth of information.

The same day, after a good month in the mail (who knows where, really), Valeries' envelope of goodies arrived from Germany.  No reason for this gift.  Just a lovely gesture from a generous woman to a blogging friend in Mexico.  Thank you Valerie.

Let's begin with the envelope.  A work of art in itself.  Valerie does spectacular mail art, and this is no exception.

It traveled a long way and obviously got sidelined somewhere.  Such a fun piece of mail art.

The contents was wrapped in wonderful hand stamped tissue paper, and lots of ribbon.  This bag of jewels will be great fun to add to my stash.

I think Valerie has a real style of her own.  I call her the "Queen of Tags" .. love this one.  The little book is absolutely jam packed with details, colour and wonderful graphic elements.

A great accordion book, covers finished and blank inside so I can play.  She included some wonderful elements to inspire me.

This is the card Valerie made me.  I am in LOVE with this little bird!  She makes me laugh and smile and everything in between. The detail is marvelous.  She even has a small seed bead for her eye. Completely charming, don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by.  Do it again soon.  :o)

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
~Maya Angelou