Have You Heard of Pocket Letters? Want to Swap?

Have you heard about Pocket Letters yet? They're the creative invention of crafter Janet Lane. Janet was looking for a way to share easy-to-mail cards similar to Project Life Cards and she came up with this wonderful idea. It's taken off like wild fire and Janet's Pocket Letter Pals Network now has tons of members from all over the world.

Just to give you an idea of what a Pocket Letter is, I'm including a PL that I recently did for a Halloween swap with one of my Pocket Letter pals. What's great about this idea is that it uses readily available trading card sleeves. You can get these sleeves just about anywhere and they're super inexpensive. Each pocket measures 2.5 x 3.5, which is the same size as an ATC/ACEO so it's extremely convenient! Pals go all out decorating, embellishing and adding extra goodies for their PL pals to use. It's an excellent hobby that fosters new relationships! There are even groups for kids, so your children can participate and make new mail art friends.

If you're interested in swapping Pocket Letters with me or my readers please feel free to leave a comment below! 

Paint Blob Figure Art

I love Carla Sonheim's art and wanted to give her ink figure art a try. I didn't have any ink, so I used watered down black acrylic paint. Using a messy, well-used brush I painted two paint blobs and added the figure. This is a super simple technique, which can be easily altered to fit your own style. You could also try making your figure's base using Sharpies or oil pastels like I did in the last two photos below. Go ahead...give it a try!

"Fran" © 2016 Susan Barton

"Gramps" © 2016 Susan Barton

"Redhead" © 2016 Susan Barton
Made with Sharpie instead of paint.

"Redhead 2" © 2016 Susan Barton
Made with Oil Pastel instead of paint, and a little bit
of watercolor for the background.