Wacky Wednesday #98: Postage Stamps

I’m back again with another Wacky Wednesday costume I made from everyday objects. This time it’s postage stamps. It’s been a long time since my last Wacky Wednesday (over a year!). For many Wednesdays, I had a valid reason: I was teaching art at school, and costumes would have to wait. But then, a certain virus derailed all Wednesday plans, all over the planet. 

In theory, the order to stay at home meant I could make wacky costumes every Wednesday. Except for two things. Reason #1: it’s not fun to wear these costumes only at home. Being out in public to surprise and amuse my people was a big part of my creative impulse. And Reason #2 (which is really the bigger reason): I was depressed. And being wacky when you’re depressed is not doable. There were days when I felt like myself, and other days when I felt anxious and resentful. Why get into that here? Because being real about all these mixed feelings helps. I’m wacky, but I’m human, too.

So I decided that the next Wacky Wednesday costume would wait until my spirits had lifted enough to match my outfit. My Wacky Wednesdays involve the use of everyday objects, elevated to new heights by becoming wearable art. And what is more of an everyday object than a postage stamp? Most of us see them almost daily. But if you stop to look at them closely, they are far from mundane. They are tiny pieces of art. And put together they can create a colorful, textured mosaic of wearable art.

I have collected stamps for decades. Not “collecting,” as in going to stamp shows, and preserving mint condition stamps in albums. I have kept used stamps on envelopes because I’m a sentimental person (and borderline hoarder) and I’ve kept hundreds of letters from friends and family over thirty years, since before the Age of the Internet. I have almost 900 stamps, and 440 of them made it onto this outfit.

There are stamps showing almost anything you can imagine—from historical people or moments, to sports figures. From hobbies to photos you can upload into custom stamps. At some point someone saw the potential for stamps to raise awareness (and money) for causes such as breast cancer and the protection of endangered animals including African elephants, marine turtles, tigers, great apes, rhinoceroses and Asian Elephants. I love that something as small as a postage stamp can have a big impact. 

Fun fact: our modern postage stamps have been in use since 1840. But way back in 1661 postmarks were used (created by a hand stamp) to deliver local mail in London.

Have you seen stamps that are not rectangular or square? They are unusual but there are stamps that are circles, triangles and hexagons, to name a few. There are even scratch ‘n sniff stamps now!

Although I was not sure what to do with my collection of used stamps, I saw their potential. Some are from the ‘80s and ‘90s, when a stamp cost twenty two cents. A few years ago my mom gave me some stamps that predated that. It’s been fun to look at stamps from decades ago. Some are postmarked from countries far away. Some are kind of plain. Others are colorful and whimsical. There are people who would find it odd that I’m not trying to sell this mini collection. But most of these stamps are not in mint condition and I’m not interested in selling. I’m motivated by creating. But how to group them on my costume? By color? Country? Image? Value? I ended up grouping the stamps into the following categories: patriotic, holiday, foreign, historical, famous people, nature, animals, pop culture, causes and miscellaneous. Some stamps were hard to categorize: did Elvis belong in Famous People, or in Pop Culture? I had multiple Elvis stamps, so I put some in each of those categories.

Got stamps? Got a mask? Got stamps on a mask?

If you’ve been reading my Wacky Wednesday blog posts since I started this journey in 2015, thank you! If you haven’t been reading since day one, that’s okay, too. We’re getting close to wrapping up this chapter, and it makes me nostalgic. I like the idea of completing this with the round number of 100. It’s been so fun to create and blog about costumes. There are two more WWs to create but I'm almost ready to call this chapter complete. There are a lot of other creative projects I want to do, so don’t worry—there will still be creative blog posts coming soon to an inbox near you…

Fear not. This wacky gal is not leaving anytime soon...