My REAL wall wishes you all Happy Holidays!, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

We couldn't afford REAL misteltoe this year because of the recession, but Andy and Elena wish you all Happy Holidays!

(Thanks to Box652 for the Sunday Punny)

2 days til Christmas, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

...and loads of great postal prezzies for us!

Check out the gems from Camel (30 minutes to open - Airplane repair tape!), Louise (she's discovered she's quite an artist and is sending me her mailart 12 once a month) and Paula (Inner Child)

Other artists in the mix are Douglas Galloway (addressed to Elena - yay! I still owe you one Douglas, I'll get round to it I promise!), Pierpaolo, Feltypants, Ria and Ammy.

Some of these are coming to Romania with us this Christmas!

A mailbox explosion, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's Christmas Eve and I was at work this morning. It's not all bad of course, as obviously there wasn't really a great deal to do, but the worst bit was thinking that I would get no REAL mail when I got home.

How wrong I was! When I got home, I had so much post I couldn't open the door properly! Didn't I say that MailArt365 was an inbox explosion!

In amongst these gems are Cameloramas superb stiched #1 and his superscary post with pimp-up dollar (which Elena has given me strict instructions to "hurry up and put that up so I can hide it at the bottom of the postcard box and never see it again"), one from Snookie and Angie, 2 from Box 652 ("Missiletoe" and "Eyes"), a new years wish card from Rebecca Resinski

Elena received one addressed to her (she does feel somewhat in my postal shadow) from a new quilling contact called Martinaquill whose work has really inspired her. That's the first bit of quilling she's ever received in the post!

Not enough time to post a proper REAL wall today, but wanted you all to know that your work has arrived. All these pieces will be making their way with us on holiday this Christmas, so keep your eyes peeled!

As most of you know, I've been running mailart365 since December 1st, so the amount of mailart I'm putting out (and receiving) has gone up astronomically in the last month. I had hoped this would lead to more REAL walls as my mailart started hitting the walls of mailartists the world over.

This was the first sighted postcard on someone elses wall, over at the Coffee and Cappuccino art blog. Pamela is an artist in San Francisco and a late entrant to mailart 365

Maybe I've not been quite clear enough, but I'd love to see pics of my post when it arrives on your walls too! Happy Christmas!

my REAL skull-a-day, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Since discovering skulladay, I've been meaning to make a skull wall and today I finally got round to it! A REAL skull wall of mailart and postcards.

Can you spot your postcards in it?

my REAL wall - number 1s, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

With Mailart365 in full swing now and nearly 2 weeks in, mailart is coming in from many of the participants already. I'm really honoured to welcome so many of their #1/365's onto my REAL wall today, including the very first piece made for the project by JJalltheway, Postmuse's hilarious Frosty regrets, Mim's Colour experiment with Carolina Wren and Katerina Nikoltsou's #1

The wall also displays Camel's REAL wall 2.0 prominiently, as well as a piece of mailart from a school in Zionsville. I still owe them a piece and hope that they get a few more for their efforts. Their call can be seen, along with all the other mailart calls I receive from schools on my side blog Schoolswaps

my REAL wall - Art never dies, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's rare that I get a piece that dominates the whole wall as I do try and make sure that everyone gets an equal showing.

However, this piece from Edie S made equality a little tough!

The poster, a limited edition mailart-inspired piece is so good to look at that it may well spend a little while up there.

At the moment, Pola's piece is complemented by a knitted brooch from Okadascat, our favourite yarn bomber, and an old piece from Mim, which has been on our fridge for months. It fell off just as I was making this piece, which I took to be a sign that it wanted to get involved in this shot.

my REAL wall 5 December 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

With mailart365 in full swing, mine and Elena's time has been mainly devoted to making mailart to go out rather than displaying the incoming stuff.

Today I had so much mailart to catch up on, that it didn't all fit on my wall. In amongst the mailart there is my first postcrossing from Belarus and my first postcard from Michalis Kotsaris, a Greek Mailartist whose work took my breath away when I saw it on IUOMA.

Katerina Nikoltsou, another Greek mailartist and mailart365 contributor was the first mailartist through the postbox and her envelope made it on, but her piece will be on the next wall.

I included the advent calendar too, as Elena had never had an advent calendar before. Being Romanian, they don't have advent calendars, and last yearit didn't occur to me to get one, so this year she's experiencing daily chocolate every day for the first time. I'm not sure I really approve of this.

Much of the wall is taken up by pimped photos from Dodo. I sent him a bunch of photos a while back for pimping and interestingly he chopped EVERYTHING up, including the envelope and mailart I sent for him and glued it together with various extras! It was great!

Under the date, you can see the beginning of "The Swarm" by Cornpone. A fascinating idea, but I only have a small inkling of what is happening on this one...

Postmuse and Camel O'Rama are also represented in pre-mailart365 pieces here, as is DosankoDebbie, an etigami artist based in Japan. Take a look at her site, she goes from strength to strength!

my REAL wall - 01 December 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

This week has been a stellar week for mailart, with Mailart365 kicking off today like a whirlwind! Such a vibrant community of mailartists with a mission!

In the post this week is a nice mix of mailartists, postcrossing and schoolkids!

It's a great mix too, Camel sent me the template for the tattoo on his leg, B sent me a huge surprise package complete with some rubber stamps from Bethlehem, PA and we see the return of Cornpone, who has sent me a very slightly different wasp as part of "The Swarm"

Great to see so many mailartists creating their first ever pieces. B sent her first self-made postcards, and a 13 year old from a school in Wandsworth sent me his first piece.

What I'd really like is for people to send more postcards to these schoolkids and encourage mailart at grassroots level.

This schools address will be put up on *yet another) mailart that I run at the moment and I'd love it if readers could send a postcard to them. The blog is called School swaps and I post up all the addresses of classes seeking mailart that I receive there. Please give it a visit and send any addresses there if you get them!