I first came to know about Benjamin Shaws envelopes when I got one through the post from Benjamin last year. I loved it, and made sure to send him some post back to say so. Next thing you know, I received a neat little package, lovingly wrapped of blank envelopes that I could send out myself!

Inside the package was a lovely handwritten letter too, in which Benjamin talks about his love of post and how by day his work leaves him yearning for a creative outlet and how he recently started making envelopes to fill this gap.

Intrigued, I took a look at Benjamins facebook page and saw some of the other envelopes too, and I decided to send the creator a quick message for an email interview. Here's what he had to say...

Receiving mail is such an intoxicating joy, and to get mail, I have needed to send it. As long as I have been old enough to write, a favourite past time of mine is to write letters and send notes. Anything postal, including stamps, postmarks, messages in bottles, parcels, postcards, greeting cards and letters have all interested me. I have had many pen friends over the years and have written so many letters. I think letters are so personal and make such intimate time capsules, and personal letters also bring lots of pleasure and happiness to the recipients.

For the people I really cared about, I started making and decorating my own envelopes and being creative with the letters themselves. Cutting out images and making a collage or just making an envelope from a page taken from a magazine. Sketching something or painting something here and there. When I saw some mail art at an exhibition once, I immediately hit upon the idea of drawing pictures on envelopes that made the address interesting, or putting it differently, writing the address on something interesting that had been drawn on the envelope.

It was only a matter of time before this idea transitioned from one off, hand drawn envelopes, sent on their way, to drawing on the computer, so I could start sharing them with other people. All the subject matter comes from my personal experiences, travels, hopes and dreams. My desk has a typewriter and a red phone so makes for easy inspiration. I have an orange alarm clock on my beside table. Many of my friends have young children and so dinosaurs and octopus scenes always go down well. Everywhere I go I am thinking of an odd perspective for a new design. I actually have 100s in my sketch books. I just haven't translated all them onto the computer - give me time.

The best thing about my envelopes is that they are sent easily and mean that not only one's thoughts can travel, but so do the envelopes themselves.

Check out Benjamins envelopes on his facebook page

my REAL wall features Okadascat, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Today's featured REAL artist is the totally brilliant UK based knitter Okadascat

For me and Elena, knitting begins and ends with Okadascat and every parcel through from this mysterious northern knitter makes us both squeal with delight.

The REAL wall correspondence affair began not long after I began my REAL wall, when one day I received a small random square of wool in the post with some mailart calls. Being new to the whole mailart thing back then I wondered what the heck the mailart calls were, but was fascinated by the wool. Up until this point I had figured that the only things that could be sent through the post were made of paper. Fabric in the post? Weird, but strangely compelling.

So I tracked down the artist and had a poke about on www.okadascat.blogspot.com/, where I found loads of examples of yarn-bombing and street furniture cosy knitting. Somewhere up north Okadascat was getting up to yarn-based mischief, keeping bollards warm with custom made wooly cosys. This was my kind of fun, so I cheekily sent her an email asking if she could make my REAL wall a new banner.

Much to my surprise, a full size knitted banner appeared in the post at the end of that week and it's been all over the place with me since.

Thinking that things couldn't get any better than that showed yet another bit of underestimation on my part and when the whole council fiasco got under way, one of the outstanding pieces that came through was the wooly protest mail from Okadascat, which was knitted onto a card.

The wooly star which arrived in late 2009 spurred Elena to pick up some knitting needles and we spent New Years Eve indoors knitting and making mailart, which is really testament to how much of an influence this wooly stuff has had on us.

The latest piece, a complete surprise too, was mini-Andys new hat and scarf, which will come in extremely useful when he takes to the road in March. We couldn't believe our eyes when this one came through.

So, even though other knitters do exist out there, Okadascat has opened our eyes to a whole new angle on knitting. Before her, knitting was really just functional and not all that glamorous, but now we all know that knitting is actually the new cool.

All hail the one and only Okadascat!

my REAL wall features Rejin Leys, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

I became aware of the work of New York based mixed-media artist Rejin Leys through the July Twitter #mailart project.

Her present series, entitled "Evolution + Connections" was inspired by the food shortages that confronted the US last year and in them we see recurring motifs of chickens, rice, eggs, entrails, bugs and stars.

If you check out her sketchbook at rejinleys.com/, you'll see that as the year has gone on, she's really distilled her art to a very distinct style, and the resulting pieces are delightful. You would think that given a small number of symbols and colours that Rejin would be kinda limited in her ability to express herself, but the disciplined approach has really paid off.

Take for example the protest post, featuring 2 chickens. Up until now I had expected the pieces to be purely symbolic representations of shape and form, but when I received this and realised that they could talk I confess I was surprised! I guess that I hadn't expected that the pieces could go beyond the limits that I had constructed for them and that's the beauty of this whole series.

I wouldn't say I'm any artist but looking at Rejin's series I love the way that she uses symbols and motifs which become familiar over time, leading you to a sense of security and safety. Then suddenly wham! The chickens start talking or she throws a human torso in the mix. It's kinda freaky.

Do keep an eye out for her on the art scene if you're lucky enough to be in New York, cos it looks like she's gonna be doing some talks near you!

my REAL wall - November 03 2009 - Total rubbish, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

When I first had the idea for my REAL wall I had a dream that one day it would become an international art gallery showcasing some of the world's best photographers and artists REAL work, and now I finally have enough pieces of mailart from some of you to make this happen.

Today's featured REAL artist is one of my favourite mailartists on the scene today - Dumpsterdiversanonymous works only with rubbish and recycled materials, but creates some of the most breathtaking and original artworks. I drop by her flickr page almost daily as she has a prolific output rate but never lets this compromise quality.

The pieces are displayed in reverse order of when they were received by my REAL wall.

From right to left, we have "Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" - a fabulous surreal piece, combining a photography magazine and a flower. I absolutely love the sentiment of this piece.

In the middle is this is a paper status update callde "Noh bugs" updating me on the California.

The first piece that I received, to the right was the classic "Lunar jumping contest", showing a flea taking on a frog on the moon.

Dumpsterdivers sense of humour and skill with her material arrangement is second to none and she is deservedly my first featured artist!

NB - (I've just realised I forgot to add "Dreaming of Tokyo" - a Pimp my photo project that Carroll done for me)