e&c - thank you - mailing No 10

I hardly ever center the lines, but, my eye likes centering on a square envelope.
I also like mixing styles of lettering.

When this photo was taken, I did not have the stamps yet - those are just printed out on my printer from the USPS website. We had to wait for the Garden of Love stamps which were sooooo beautiful. I chose the big square, to have one more unique envelope for the series. Plus, I liked the idea of using two stamps. And apparently, I had not yet thought of doing big splashy flowers on the envelopes so this one is not a good representation of the thank yous.

I used the leftover Crane's card stock and ran the thank you card itself on my laser printer. Then I embossed lines on each one, by hand, with a bone folder. It was medium tedious - but I loved the look. My daughter enjoyed having lines to write on.

Here are photos taken by me of the only two examples I have with the actual stamps. I also found several envelopes with no stamps and I have no idea why I have them. I guess they were ones that I re-did. I did some with white colored pencil and some with white gel pen. The gel pen is definitely better. All the color is colored pencil. These stamps were gorgeous. I wish they would re-issue them. I was very happy with how the thank you envelopes turned out and used those stamps on a few custom invitations that year.

The one in the upper left is done with white gel pen which looks nice. but I like the darker green better. Maybe not. 

So, there you have it. Ten mailings. Not everyone got all ten mailings. And one time I added up exactly how many envelopes I did mail - but I did not write it down anywhere. I wish I had - along with how much I spent on postage. One time someone asked me if I knew how much the whole shebang cost and what I would charge to do it for someone else. While I did use up a ton of leftover stock, I know that I would charge an arm and a leg to do anything similar. And I'm glad that I only have one daughter. 

Thanks for letting me take this trip down memory lane. Over the years, I did a ton of wedding work even though I'm not keen on attending dressy events - or gatherings of more than a couple people. But, I did enjoy offering a service to people who loved mail and loved the beautiful penmanship. There were SO many clients who would simply GUSH about the comments from guests after they received their envelopes. Calligraphy is such a little thing -- but I probably said this to every single client, "Calligraphy sets the tone for your event. Some people are so happy to see their name written beautifully. And -after all- the guests are a really important part of the event - so that little extra touch is rather nice -- and often times appreciated."