JUNE: Stamp Geek #1 - A Booklet of Artistamps

Edited to allow for Australian public holiday on Monday 7th.

N.B. Stamp booklet in pic above is real, not faux!

A Booklet of Artistamps
Recently, I discovered that a stall on my local market sells multitudinous out of date magazines for just £1 each. I saw that they had several about stamps and stamp collecting, so I just thought, why not? Maybe they will inspire my faux postage creations in some way. And they did! This swap is the first in a series devoted to my inner stamp geek, inspired by features in these magazines. The Booklet of Artistamps swap exists thanks to this article , about the first booklets of postage stamps issued in London, and how the design & manufacture of both stamps & booklets morphed over time.

Swap description
So for this swap, we will use the booklet format to present a small sheet or sheets of artistamps/faux postage. The booklet should contain:

• a minimum of 6 artistamps (sender's choice whether these are multiples of the same design, or a mixed set)
• a front cover
• a back cover
• a note on the design of the stamp/s (e.g. title, artist, medium etc)
• whatever information you think would be fun to include.

The original stamp booklets included paid advertisements, so why not get creative & design some faux ads, too! (N.B. This is just a suggestion & not a swap requirement!)

The artistamps themselves can be made using whatever technique you can successfully bind into booklet form. Printmaking & digital artwork lend themselves to reproduction, but you could equally make tiny paintings or collages, or even embroideries! Anything goes.

Optional
The idea of artistamps is that they look like real postage stamps, so things to think about are

• perforations – could be real (apparently an unthreaded sewing machine will work for this) or faux, like the stamps themselves. Or you could trim with postage stamp edge scissors.
• stickability – you could add lick'n'stick glue to the back, or (if working with paper) print/mount on self-adhesive label paper.
• origin & currency – all stamps (actually, with the exception of UK stamps) include wording for the country they are from, and the price of the stamp. You could make something up, or 'adopt' an existing fictional land for which to issue postage stamps, or you could just omit these details – it's up to you!

Swap requirements

• 3 swap partners = 3 stamp booklets sent & 3 stamp booklets received.
• Stamps should be handmade by you (rather than produced for you by one of the online services (eg Zazzle or Royal Mail Smilers), using any technique.
• Traditional stamp booklets were pocket-sized, so make your artistamp booklet a maximum of 3” x 4” (approx.).

The obvious bit
You already had to have a rating of 4.9+ with no recent no-sends, 1s or 3s to join this group anyway, so the same stands for this swap. But I will still double-check before assigning partners, so if you have what you feel is an unfair comment or rating, just PM me & we can try to work it out. :-)

Resources

• 'Real' stamps : A is for Advertising, B is for Booklets
• Mirkwood Designs has a masking template for hand-decorated sheets of Faux Postage as well as a Postage Stamp Envelope for storage.
• The Olathe Post has lots of info about artistamps & also sells gummed, perforated, blank stamp paper (unfortunately, overseas shipping puts this outside of my budget :-( ).
• Nick Bantock is artist & author of a series of books about Griffin & Sabine - the books are beautifully illustrated, and include 'real' letters in 'real' envelopes, embellished with 'real' faux postage & postal marks. My favourite of his, though, is Urgent, 2nd Class where he talks about his techniques and inspiration for creating his vast collection of faux ephemera. Fascinating!
• The Local Post Collectors Society gives a rundown of various people who have gone the whole hog and actually operate their own faux postal services.
• The Cinderella Stamp Club - Cinderellas are another name for artistamps. This is the slightly scary place to be when you get really addicted - they seem to take it all very seriously...