Halloween Mail Art Party

Back in 2012, I had a mail art party at my house. At the beginning of the month, I hosted a reprise to great success. Mail art parties are a blast. It was relaxing, fun and all together a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Plus, I now have a giant pile of Halloween envelopes for the rest of my mail this month. Here's some tips on how to host your own.

STEP ONE: Set a Date and Time. This is the hardest part. You should see my schedule. My schedule is insane. Instead of trying to coordinate with others, I just found the first open spot in my calendar. The thing about mail art is that it's fun with others or by yourself. I knew I'd have a good time even if no one came. I made the timeframe wide (from 12 - 4) and invited people to just drop by anytime in there.

STEP TWO: Invite Lovely People. I invited friends, co-workers and pen pals and most of those people are three for three. My house is small and the people who could make the time that was free on my schedule were just enough.

STEP THREE: Gather Supplies & Set Up. I decided to theme my party around Halloween. It is my most favorite of holidays and one of my favorite motifs. You could pick any theme- a color, an animal, a presidental election..., but it's easier if you pick something familiar. Halloween has a fair amount of craft supplies available for it, making it easy to amass a great number of supplies with very little effort. I went through my collection and pulled out anything spooky, anything weird, anything black, grey, silver, purple, or orange. From my basics, I had scissors, glue, ink pads, stencils, and blank labels.

The kitchen was the best place. I pulled in another table from my porch and put an artboard over the top of it so there was a smooth place to work. I put down paper so that no one would have to worry about messing up my tables. (Not that they could have, but it's nice to feel free to get glue on things.) I put papers on one side and embellishments and rubber stamps on the other. Everything was going to get mixed up anyway, but it was nice to start out in an orderly manner.

STEP FOUR: Have a Blast. They came over and we drank Cider Dark and Stormies and ate goodies and played with paper. There wasn't any need for "instruction", but I did offer a tip or two regarding a certain thin tissue  and tool use. It was a ton of fun. I highly recommend it.

Comments

[FinnBadger]

I love how the cat felt the need to be in on the action... or at least lying near the action, but only so the action can be ignored!

[Nancy]

I know this is an OLD post but I wanted to send this comment when I read about your Halloween card-making event.

I want to host an event for card-making but EVERYONE is always so busy. I'm trying to make 100 greeting cards for my Mom's birthday. I've got quite a few to make right now. (I've got 45 cards made so far.) My Mom turns 80 years old on July 17th & she LOVES to send out cards. Due to arthritis, she can't write longhand very long so sending out cards is her way of staying in touch with everyone.

I like your idea of drinks & snacks. Maybe I can entice more people to help out with the lure of food & drink!

Thanks for the idea!