MPU: Artistamps!

Bear with me and this wordy swap description. I know there are some newbies to artistamps out there and I want this swap to be as welcoming to all levels as possible. If you know what you're doing, skip to the end for the actual swap info. ^_~

Artistamps are basically fake postage stamps designed by artists. They can be used to decorate mail art or traded/collected between artists. Kind of like very small artist trading cards.

• Artistamps on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistamp

There are many ways you can go about creating artistamps, but digital seems to be the preferred method as it's easy to reproduce sheets of multiple stamps. You can make artistamps any way you choose, using any art you want; they can be perforated like real postage or not. They don't even have to be produced on gummed or sticky paper.

Basic instructions for digitally producing artistamps:

• Get or make the image you want to use for your stamp. Starting at ATC size or larger is recommended. Keep in mind that it will eventually be downsized, so super fussy details, small words and busy design will either be lost or just look like crap. Once you have an image to use, you can load it into an image editing program to add borders, recolor, add your name or date, make up a fake denomination, whatever. You make your artistamp look as much like a real stamp as you choose - just don't make it look so good that the USPS thinks you're trying to defraud them.

• Once you have your image ready, you will need to make multiples of it on a sheet. You can upload it to a word processing program and resize it to fit, you can make a sheet in Photoshop or you can do like I do and use Google Docs. Video demo of my technique can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BOxqNVsjaoQ/. The number of rows and columns you choose to add to your table will resize your image accordingly.

Besides digitally producing stamps, you can make them manually, directly on a sheet of paper, using rubber stamps, drawing or painting and then punching or cutting out your stamps. You can also use a template (basically a stencil of repeated square/rectangles) to make a uniform sheet of artistamps.

So, with all that info, on to what we're swapping!

For this swap we'll have 2 partners. We will send 10 artistamps to each of our 2 partners. Send at least 2 different designs of artistamps to your 2 partners. You can make/send full sheets, half sheets, individually cut out artistamps - it's up to you.

Your artistamps need to be your own creations. Punches of scrap book paper are not acceptable as artistamps.

Your artistamps DO NOT have to be perforated, have the appearance of a perforated stamp border or be sticky/gummed.

When your artistamps are ready to send to you partners, mail them in a creative envelope decorated with (shocker) artistamps.

Additional info on artistamps:

• Faux Postage Q & A

• Rubberstamped Faux Postage Tutorial

• In-depth Word tutorial for making artistamps

If you have any helpful links to share, please do so in the comments below.