Starting the New Year off with A Guest Post--Meet Camille!

Hey there readers! I have been away for a little over a week now, I need to catch you all up on some great mail that I've gotten lately (as well as send some out!!!) I know that many of you always like to find new blogs, projects, pen pals, people and ideas so I would like to introduce you to Camille! You can read all about her below! Hope you enjoy it--be sure to show some blog love for her!
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Hello!
My name is Camille and I blog at 327market.  Many years ago I graduated from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.  This means that I am a total snob, but mostly about the stuff I make myself.  Since then, I have taught art at just about every level, from preschool to adult ed.  Now I have babies, which means that I don't get to do hardly any art at all.  That is why I love Swap-bot so much, because it gives me happy deadlines and fills my mailbox with love.  I am very excited to share some fun mail and a mail art project I am starting.
I had a happy mail box day on Monday, Jan 3rd.  Christmas just keeps on giving!

This beautiful envelope is from the Christmas Memories Swap.  It contains a sweet letter and some lovely goodies.  I love the letter swaps, because they give a unique glimpse into the life of someone else.  It also gives me an excuse to write ridiculous things to perfect strangers.  I am not Catholic, so I need a private confessional to air my peck-id-i-yos (I have no idea how that word spelled in English, or Spanish).

This is from Portugal, from Swap-bot user hbranco2003.  It also has a lovely stamp.

This is a Postcrossing card from Paulina in Poland.  Poland looks much greener than California, where I live.

This is from castlequeen in Pennsylvania.  This image makes me hungry for cheese!

I think I may be biting off more than I can chew, but I signed up for 31 Day Letter Challenge swap.  I had to beg the hostess to let me in, because my rating was exactly 1 hundredth of a point off.  My plan is to create mail art that actually looks like real mail, even though it isn't going through any postal system.  Rather, it is going through my postal system.  So I created some cancellation stamps for an imaginary post office.  I looked at a bunch of vintage cancellations online and got lots of good ideas.  I want to make more!  If I had a printer, I'd create my own stamps, but instead I am using some beautiful vintage ones.  When I was a kid I used to dream about designing my own rubber stamps (this was in the 80s, when rubber stamping was an underground thing and it was hard to get our hands on them.  And the catalogs were works of art in themselves.  Since then I have discovered Rubberstamps.net, who, for a nominal fee, will let you design your own stamps to your heart's content-- they are fast, too!)

I feel guilty using collector's stamps, but I figure they are going to a good cause and getting a second life.  If I have time, I want to draw on the envelopes, because now, I need a reason to draw.  I will be documenting more of this project on my blog and I would love to see you there!

~Camille