Heartfelt thanks for stamps!

A surprise parcel arrived containing many thousands of stamps sent by a friend who was having a clear-out! The majority were red 1st and blue 2nd class stamps,  1st class gold stamps, and  hundreds of Christmas issues from recent years.  All of these will come in useful in stamp collage pictures including some I am currently working on.  But there are also several little treasures  amongst the hoard, and here are just a few rather special stamps which may be part of something in future.
I have mentioned the Resplendent Quetzal in a blog of 27th July 2019,    and so I was thrilled to uncover an old Guatemalan stamp issued  in aid of the Red Cross, featuring a nurse flanked by two of these wonderful long tailed birds. There is no value on this stamp and I haven't yet been able to find out exactly when it was issued or if indeed it has any current value, but will keep if in  my/my father's collection of very old Guatemalan stamps!

I always love to find a heart!  And there were a few among this enormous pile of stamps, so that made me very happy!  I have a growing collection of pretty heart stamps from several countries, and any duplicates can of course go into a Love themed collage at some point!

Article in local papers to promote the Longfield Big Heart Charity auction

Thanks to Sally Bailey, on behalf of Longfield for getting in touch and interviewing me , and producing this lovely article which features in the colour magazines of this week end's  Gloucester Citizen, Gloucester Echo and Western Daily Press,  covering several counties.
I donated this original Heart stamp collage, now framed,  as I felt it was appropriate for the Big Heart Charity auction which is now live on Ebay and will finish on Thursday evening 30th November . More than 250 pieces of work have been donated by  professional and amateur artists and celebrities and will help to raise money for art therapy  at Longfield's Minchinhampton centre.  Visit
www,Longfield.org.uk and click on Big Heart 2017.
The article in full is below:

The Heart of the Matter

I'm enjoying working on a series of "Designer" heart stamp collages.
 I have several examples of  rather eye catching stamps from several French Valentine's day  issues.
 The stamps and miniature sheets have used well known fashion houses' motifs, including Hermes, Cacharel,  and Givenchy.  One of these heart stamps was used  in the centre of a heart collage commissioned last year, and I liked the idea of making some more of these as I feel they definitely have a "feel good factor".
Stamps from all over the world are included in my latest Heart designs, as well as romantic and pretty  stamps such as  lacy hearts from USA,  as well as many flowery  pink and red stamps and some whose theme is simply, LOVE!