guest artist - jeri

once again, jeri delights us with lovely colors and masterful pointed penmanship. it's the first time i have seen the title, Prop, added to my name. i like it :-) i can see myself in a little shop with stacks and stacks of envelopes.

thanks jeri.

skip's snowman

i had to forward some mail to my son in tahoe. i had a whole sheet of these shirts and now they are not enough for postcards, so this was a good way to use them up.

once again....less than two minutes....



p.s. when i took it to the p.o. it was not enough postage, so i took it home and added a mountain on the right and skip, wearing a shirt, skiing down the mountain.

annie - stamp leftovers

a while back i talked about using leftover pieces from the edges of stamps.

annie left a comment, so i made this one. i knew i had to do something better than the unsuccessful attempt on the smashman one below

this one just doesn't work on any level and i am not interested in trying to fix it. i think the biggest problem is that i do not like the bright blue with the gray. so, when you have two colors that just don't work, don't push it. although the yuckiness of this one inspired me to try colored pencil and coming up next week is some experimental stuff that is half way decent.

from jackie - sentence name

i will transcribe the sentence that makes up the name...
Jean Wilson from Iowa - you know - that very silly girl who needs - a chop that says she is Jeans even though - allegedly through with nicknames and she wants funny gifts.

this refers to the time when i wanted a chop (or seal) that had the chinese character for jeans, the blue denim trousers. at the time, i was teaching an art class for 4 year olds. to help them remember my name, i would point to my jeans and tell them - my name is Jean, like my jeans. so, some of them would call me Jeans...and it was pretty adorable. i wish i had blogged all my stories about the little kids. they said the darndest things.

anyhow, this is a very stealworthy idea. thanks jackie

smashing idea

another smashing idea from smash-girl. i can think of a weeks worth of variations on this one. i don't have any of those stamps. i think this idea needs the font based design on the stamps.

anyone else stealing these ideas?
or just me?

pageviews

in case anyone is into numbers, here is the graph of how many views there have been on my blog. it's interesting how i managed to rack up a lot of views right at the beginning and i have maintained a steady readership. the other thing to note is that people seem to check in more during the winter months. so, i wonder if i should save the good stuff for next fall. just kidding. i also know which page has had the most views of all. and it is one that i posted as a bad example. i'm not going to say which one it is because then you would all go look at it again and raise its count even higher. maybe i should delete it so that the one in second place can be the winner. decisions decisions. anyhow, this would make a nice envelope design. scroll down to the actual envelope for today. this was an impulse post. wait a minute. the graph starts in may of 2008 and i only started the blog on feb 17, 2010. i guess google was tracking me before i even started the blog.

guest artist jackie - author stamp scribble

there are quite a few from jackie that look like this. layered scribbling. this has been in a box that i have not opened for probably 5 years. so, while i have been layering scribbling, i didn't actually remember that jackie used to do this. sorry for stealing your idea and not giving you credit sooner. although, i don't remember what i was sending her at the time. maybe she was copying me. i think it is safe to say that neither one of us invented scribbling.

i like the jaunty angle of the stamp. it even reminds me of my recent envelope where i turned the ornament into a nib. except on this one, the author on the stamp has written my name.

smashing weathervanes

how cool is this. the weathervane stamps were so pretty. you had to order them online at usps.com. now that all the 1-oz. stamps are *forever* stamps, they only make one stamp with the actual amount of 1-oz. and they mostly sell them in huge rolls of 10,000 which must work in some kind of automatic stamping machine. but you may buy strips of 10 online.

since the rates went up, they now have a 46-cent stamp and it looks like a stylized daisy. i think they called it a kaleidoscope.
it's very pretty, too.

i like how smash drew a bunch of weathervanes. since she lives in connecticut, i imagine weathervanes are popular motifs in her neighborhood.
thank you smash :-)

repeat

yes, i know, this one already ran in feb of 2011. this morning, i was looking at a pin board on pinterest and saw this one pinned to someone's board, and i was curious to see when it was posted and by clicking on it, i also saw the option to click on all the other envelopes -from this blog- that people have pinned.
and
oh
my
gosh
there are a lot of envelopes - from this blog- pinned
i noticed that this one is the most popular one of all.
i also noticed that several of the ones (of my own) that i declared complete duds have also been pinned.
i wonder why?
is it because people have bad taste?  or are they going to report me to the graphic police?
or is there some redeeming value to bad art?
lucky for me (and you)  i am not going to obsess over those questions.

i'm sticking with the plan to just make envelopes and send them out into the world
and hopefully inspire other people to do so as well.

thank you again nancy....for this one....congratulations on being the most-pinned-envelope.
not of all time....there is one vintage envelope that has been pinned more than any other. it is this one.

i don't know why it is pinned so often, but i see it almost every day.

sheaff sunday

i'm posting both of these today because they are by the same artist. he was a professional cartoonist. these would not be the easiest idea to steal. it looks like he just filled in the spaces. but, i assure you, it just looks easy. but, maybe it isn't so hard. you won't know unless you try, eh?

thanks to dick sheaff for sharing his decorated envelopes

stella red square

this is probably the last earthscape stamp in the series. it's not my best idea. i do like a lot of empty space. stella deserves something more interesting than this. i love her name. i'll do some more.

last week i saw an interview with ray bradbury which reminded me of the process of making decorated envelopes.

he talked about writing a lot (as in quantity) and how he never had writer's block. his opinion about writer's block is that if you have it, it means you should be doing something other than writing. clearly, i like envelopes. the more i do, the more ideas i get.

and maybe you like envelopes, but you don't really like making them. or you get frustrated when you try. or you nit-pick. i do not recall if ray had any advice about the *editing* part of writing. i think he must have done some editing. i doubt he just sat down and wrote...and didn't have to edit.

the point is this: to make anything that you like, you need to make a bunch of it. there is a bunch of practice that comes before you make things you r-e-a-l-l-y like. so, don't be negative about your beginning work. it is leading you to something. ray talked about his earliest writing and how it took a while to hit his stride.

if you want to be negative about everything, go right ahead. but, you'll reap what you sow. negativity.

i try to get my beginning students to address envelopes to people and drop them in the mail....as soon as possible. when they get positive feedback, they feel better about the work. they frequently say..."i sent an envelope, but it wasn't nearly as good as one of yours." and i say..."so what?" the person who received the envelope was happy. that's all that matters. sorry if i sound preachy. i'll stop.

to and from smash (abstract owl)

sorry about all that  extra  black space.
still having technical difficulties
wanted to show something *smashed* along the left side
for penpal Smash

who has sent some lovely mail :-)  see below...

bonus post

here is a link to some mail art that goes back to 2004. it is a series of postcards that were all sent by one person to a second person.

so many good ideas, especially if you are into mail and not really into lettering....
http://www.booooooom.com/2008/09/11/riitta-ikonen/


and scroll down to the post below for the other daily post.

to and from smash (shoe)

technical difficulties. had to use a phone photo because i couldn't get the scanner to work.
but i like the idea of writing more than just the address
and i like bouncy writing

any stamp would look nice on basic black and white

thank you to s-mash
for the really lovely mail :-)  (below)
i have seen some really nice decorated shoes.
maybe i should decorate some white keds to look like mail.
i'll have to obsess over which stamp to use.

yesterday i saw a funny envelope that i wanted to re-post, but i didn't want to offend anyone, so i made a new blog for the things that are a little bit *out there.* it's not that bad. i've seen worse, but, i just didn't think it fit with my usual fare. plus, there are times i have things to share that are off topic. so now i have a place to put them:

http://notmyregularblog.blogspot.com/

topic of nit-picking (two posts today)

front of the card

a couple days ago i had the post about being all nit-picky about your work. that same day i ran across this mother's day card and envelope. i made it out of the scraps that were on my desk that day. and it is to my mother and we all know that mothers love whatever you do, so, that makes this one a little suspect. but there are times that i do just send crazy scraps with scribbles to respected artists. i'll try to find some other examples. (the silly cat that i sent to nancy hills is a good example - and if i dig, i can find some scrap stuff that i mailed to jackie that ended up back at my house. - or for fun, i can have *scrap week* and make some new stuff along these lines)

i had completely forgotten about making this. but it made me smile because i like the sentiment. i am always impressed with hallmark because they come up with some cards that capture the essence of me...but, they would never go this far. at least i don't think so. maybe i should send them my portfolio of oddities.

the point of this is to reinforce the point of mail. to say hi. don't stress over it. even if it is an important 40th birthday and you want to make 40 masterpieces. a couple of them can be very silly. it will almost be like *contrast* or visual relief...to have some that are quite different. we can use the word *naive.* just because we spend time honing our skills doesn't mean we have to adhere to the rules every minute. like ballet dancers who maybe go to a party and get drunk and do the hokey-pokey. maybe not my best comparison. how about this one....like julia child eating a big mac. no, that's too far-fetched.

anyhow...if you are busy today, ignore the rest of the post. it is off topic and you know i try to stay on topic all the time, but, i feel like i should explain some of the stuff.

inside of the card and the envelope,
also made out of scratch paper

this was hand delivered because my mom lives two doors from me. she is going to move to a senior citizen apartment, 3 blocks away. i'm thinking i should start sending her some snail mail so that when everyone is checking their mail boxes, she can whip out some really fun stuff... and it will be conversation starters. that happened to my daughter when she was in college. she was at a very urban, impersonal university where nobody talked to each other in the elevators. she said the only time people would spontaneously talk to her was when they saw her holding her fabulous mail.

for newcomers who have not read every single post, way back in the archives, is the story about how my whole obsession with decorated envelopes started. it was when i had a niece and then a daughter who were away at college, and i discovered how much they LOVED getting pretty envelopes.

the labels [ellen series] and [christy series] will take you to the ones i sent in the very beginning.

the markers on this one are the galaxy markers that i just love. you may order them from john neal.

and yes, i call my mother by her first name. people think that is very strange. it works for us. i have some very old greeting cards that i made for her when i was a kid and i used her first name on them, too. i think i had an early fascination or something with names....which is now my current obsession with making art out of names. i'll get around to scanning them some day.

robin - needs fixing

see that dot on the i in robin - it is a drip of teal gouache. i did a set of envelopes for a bride using teal gouache in a nib and that was the only time i had a drip and it happened before i even started writing. so, i figured i could come up with a fun envelope based on a random drop of ink.

i wanted to welcome robin to an upcoming class of mine and as soon as i wrote the robin, i knew i was not going to like the envelope. i think it might have been fine if the n was a lower case n, the size of the o. and maybe a lower case r as well.

after i did not like the RobiN, i drew the box around it, then thought of making the box into the dot on the i in kline. i'm happy with the concept, but, i did not have a stamp in mind. if i had chosen a stamp, i would have made the box for the stamp the correct height.

i suppose this one would work if she had a PO box. then i could put
PO 43
50312
below the USA 20c

i'll have to bring this one to class and show how to fix it because i always offer EnvelopeRx to the students
anything they mess up, i show them how to fix it -so- i guess i should be able to fix my own messes, eh?
stay tuned for fool-proof remedy

owls and hot dogs (3)

Those collectors seeking the unusual will not be left wanting in 2013
Finland will celebrate strange contests such as wife-carrying and anthill-sitting on stamps.
Switzerland will be celebrating the cartoon Smurfs, as well as honouring 111 people in a 'Faces of Switzerland' set.
Belgium will be issuing 'Belgian Chocolate' stamps which taste and smell of chocolate.
Iceland will provide a brief guide to building a hot dog, complete with mustard, raw onion and and ketchup, on a single value due in March. A subject sure to whet the appetite of all stamp collectors.

http://www.collectors-club-of-great-britain.co.uk/Features/Post-offices-reveal-2013-stamp-plans/_ft1583


i found the above while i was surfing.  the hot dog stamp is down at the bottom because when i add things, i never know where they are going to appear.  right below is an envelope from smash. i'm leaving this odd combination (owls and hot dogs) together because the colors look nice together. smash's owls are adorable.

chatter post

look at the post below this one for the pretty post for the day.

i am adding a post because i have been having a discussion with a friend who is the process of making 40 envelopes for her daughter's 40th birthday in june. she is half done and has sent me some rough drafts with some of her concerns.

first concern: what colors look good on colored envelopes.? she didn't want to resort to white all the time. i agree, it can be very hard to find colors of ink and marker and gel pen that work on colored paper. many writing fluids are not opaque, so you get mud. so, white is a good choice for a base layer. then add some color on top. i will address this issue in upcoming posts.

second concern: getting everything *just right.* i won't post her comments, but trust me, she is doing the nit-picking that many of us do. on almost every envelope i do, i look at something that i would have done different. spacing is huge. it is so hard to get it right the first time. but, that sort of defeats the purpose of making envelopes for fun. they are - envelopes-. they do not need to be suitable for framing. they are ephemeral. so, just have fun.

and now, so you all know that i never listen to my own advice...
there were people who requested the exemplars that i offered a week ago.
i posted that i would mail them on saturday
but...instead, i just fell into the wretched trap of fussing over the details.
remember when it took me 5 tries to get a design i liked on the Fermi stamp?
well, i'm doing the same thing
so
i will mail them today
even though they are not 100% satisfactory

from nancy

ok....this week was going to be a week that showed how to take the leftover portions of the self adhesive sheets that are left after you use the stamps. this is the top of the earthscape sheet.

then, i had 4 envelope jobs arrive within 3 days, so, i have to have a hodgepodge week.

luckily, there has been a flood of mail from smash, and some other blog readers :-)

another SPECTACULAR decorated envelope from nancy. having to add some penny stamps just gives nancy opportunities for really wonderful details.

sheaff sunday

you'll need to take some pretty intense lettering classes to make envelopes like this.

that little horizon at the top is stealworthy and you could do it with some colored pencil....

has anyone tried running their envelopes through their printer. i've heard you can do that.

thanks again to dick sheaff for sharing his envelopes

chuck bday

exactly two minutes after i performed that atrocity on kathy's envelope that i posted yesterday. i picked up one of the remaining Earthscape stamps and did this. it was very quick and easy. and i must say, i like it a lot. so, if you make something wretched, don't let it ruin your day.

BTW, it would be tempting to do a very complicated decorated envelope to go with that stamp. all gridded out with green and red....i need more free time.

mimi challenge - kathy

eeeeekkkkkk or iiiiccckkkkkk.
i do not care for this one at all. i liked it better before i add the hot pink.
i suppose there will be someone out there who likes it.
if so, please tell me what it is doing right...i can't see it.
sorry kathy, i owe you one.

so, the mimi challenge was - indeed - challenging.
but, the idea to write a name a bunch of times and then add a little something is still a valid suggestion for making a quick decorated envelope.

mimi challenge - amy

after i did mimi, sue, and robin, i remembered my GO-TO technique...turn the paper. i did one turn and wrote the last three amys over the tails on the largest amys.

then, liking the way they turned out, i did the kathys in four directions.

i'm not crazy about the texture i pulled off the stamp to finish off the lettering on amy's. but, wait til you see what happens to the kathy tomorrow. wear sunglasses, squint, and puh-leeze....put a bag over your head (paper, not plastic)

shout out to the people who sent some pretty spectacular mail...i will be sending your exemplars on saturday. i have to obsess a bit over the addressing of the envelopes and stamp selection.

mimi challenge - robin

cranberries. lots of cranberries.
and now that i look at this again, i see that my solution to the R with the three different directions is already on the envelope.

it is the robin that appears underneath the top, left, largest robin.  see how the leg that should be going at an angle is actually shooting out to the right and is perpendicular to the first stem-stroke?
that is my solution. i don't think anyone would mistake it for any other letter.

i might have to decorate this envelope with more cranberries. or not. it is a clunker. maybe the cranberries need to be square, like the stamp.

mimi challenge

decorate an envelope with only two colors when you are in a hurry.

this one should have appeared on monday. it was hiding in the draft folder. the finished "robin" which was supposed to appear today will appear on wednesday.


i can't remember why i started the mimi challenge. it had something to do with her insisting i was some kind of genius because i was able to recall and describe in an email how to make a compass to draw perfect 6-foot (or even larger) circles.

the bottom scan is the first layer. choose three different pens and write the name a few times.

on the top, to finish the design, i just did some outlining and chose a stamp with a dot of color.

a two minute decorated envelope. has anyone noticed that i write *decorated envelope* every day? i am testing google to see if i can get my envelopes to pop up when people search *decorated envelope.* i am usually near the top of the list on websites, but not on images. i think i need to start putting captions on the scans.

mimi challenge - sue

the mimi envelope was supposed to pop up this morning, but, it has disappeared, so we will look at sue's first:


using the formula for the mimi challenge, using three different pens and scribbling the name several times. i did a sue and a robin. then i looked for stamps. i found a sheet of the Earthscape stamps. great abstract designs. that S shaped one really wanted to jump on sue's envelope. all i had to do was scribble a little color to tie them together.

the robin envelope...not looking very promising. that very first R is a complete clunker. i believe world famous calligrapher Peter Thornton has mentioned that R can be a challenging letter. it has three things going on. a straight vertical stroke, a bowl, and a leg at an angle. someday i will feature my solution to the R.

tomorrow, i will show
robin's less than perfect decorated envelope. you might want to wear sunglasses. or squint.

sheaff sunday

how cool is this? i need more hours in the day to do my own versions of these highly stealworthy ideas.

thanks again to dick sheaff for sharing his envelopes.

h.b.n.

this was sent to nancy, who commented ( a while back) on a different cat on a different envelope. i added her address right under the *please deliver to*
then, i chickened out and put another address and stamp on the reverse side...

below is a portrait of a cat that nancy painted so you can all gain some perspective about *quality* and whether or not you should obsess about sending decorated envelopes.

nancy's cat portrait is gorgeous and one would think that anyone (including me) would be intimidated to send a silly sketch like this to such a talented artist. i hear from people who will remain nameless (unless she outs herself in a comment below) that sometimes people start an envelope to send to me for my birthday in april and they agonize over it so long, it arrives in october or november and i think it is a holiday greeting....so....peeps...really....you can just scribble anything silly and it will be just fine. it's an envelope. it's not the sistine chapel.

although, if there were any cats on the sistine chapel, they'd probably look a lot like this, eh? and i mean the one below, not the one on the envelope.

stamp placement

annie asked about the non-conforming positioning of stamps on mail art.
she asked if i take them in for a hand cancel or just drop them in the mail box and hope for the best.
i prefer to drop them in the mail box.
a few postal workers can be very unfriendly when they see non-conforming decorated envelopes.
the friendlier postal workers who understand mail art are not bothered by non-conforming stamp placement.
if you want to send a one-ounce envelope that conforms to the standards of size and thickness,
and you do not want to pay extra
it is my understanding that the address needs to be horizontal on the envelope
in landscape orientation.
and
the essential information is the street address and the zip code
i like to make that information very clear, towards the bottom, of the envelope.
also
i like to keep the bottom 1/2 inch of the envelope clear.
i saw a video of mail traveling through the postal system and when the mail is sorted, it is sent along a little track, which obscures the bottom 1/2 inch.
if the machine can't read the address
then it sends the envelope along the track where it is read by a human being
who types in the address which is converted to that bar code
which imprints on the envelope or on a sticker on the envelope
and that bar code helps the envelope reach its destination.
i actually know someone who had the job of sitting in front of the track and deciphering the addresses that were not machine-legible, usually because of poor penmanship.
she was always happy to see some lovely mail art.
but...the bottom line is that if you pay that first class rate
and have the address clearly written, in landscape orientation
the position of the stamp is not critical.
i don't know if they will ever attempt to enforce the upper-right corner as the only acceptable position.
i understand that canada has tried to impose some strict rules about addressing envelopes.
maybe some of the canadian readers will comment.
if our PO starts to enforce stamp placement, i will comply.
but i hope they don't.
i think they have more important issues at this time.
so, we can be zany with our stamps,
legible with our addresses
and
the only consequence to non-compliant position
will be that it takes the envelope a little longer to arrive at its destination
because it has to take time to travel along the track to the human being.

this is a bonus post today. check the post below this one to see the envelope for today.

a big nib at a rest stop near iowa city. i need to post all the photos and tell the story.

sue's thank you 5

i was pleased with how this one turned out. i only did a little touch up on the black lettering. then added some adorable little roofs.

decorated envelopes don't need to take a lot of time. this one probably took 2 minutes.

and this concludes the thank yous to sue. now i have to do the thank yous to susan. then the thank yous to smash. susan set a goal of addressing 365 envelopes to herself. i'll probably have 365 addressed to her by the end of may. (not that i have actually mailed any of them)

the style of lettering is a combination of the last two days. one big letter and the rest smaller. it is also a variation in that not all the letters are skinny. the E is wide. and the letters are bouncing up and down and tilting back and forth. should i do an exemplar? or do you think you can do the variations on your own?

below is a link to some more examples of lettering... not very traditional stuff.
it was posted by someone on CyberScribes, which is a yahoo group that anyone may join if they are interested in lettering or calligraphy.

http://www.creativepro.com/article/celebration-hand-lettering

sue's thank you 4

this is not my favorite of the series. most of the time, i like to have the stamp with the envelope before i start the lettering. but, i like the way the stamp offered those little diagonal lines that i could add to the letters. the crossbar on the E could have been more inspired. i suppose the p.o. would not appreciate having to seach for the zip. too bad, the p.o. needs to appreciate the insane number of stamps we use on our decorated envelopes.

this style of lettering is the same as yesterday's.
it is just a little shorter. 

sue's thank you 3

once again, after the disaster on the first envelope where i was finishing off quick black lettering, i needed to think of something simple. instead of imitating all that lovely detail in the stamp, i just added a little echo of color to the letter.

anyone with an i in their name would enjoy seeing this stamp dotting the i


i made two exemplars (below) to show the entire alphabet for my upcoming class.
one is font based the other is hand-lettered.
i am deciding how to offer these exemplars along with lessons, since i have had requests for correspondence courses.

so, for free, you can just copy the image and enlarge it and it would be enough for some people. if you would like the have your own exemplars, along with 25 different options for positioning the addresses, you may send me $5 via snailmail and i will send you all 3 exemplars in an envelope, hand addressed, by me, which is worth way more than $5.

my address is:
jean wilson
420 - 44th street
des moines, ia 50312

if you are not in the usa or canada
email me at
jmwilson411@yahoo.com
and we can discuss how to send things

sue's thank you 2

i chose the earthscape stamps to finish up the series of 5 thank yous to sue. there were tons of options with this lettering. somehow, the stamp looked better with the red on the left - which is why it is upside-down -- then i wanted to add some red, but after the disaster on the first one, i chose to take some Post-It tape, color it red, cut some bars and play around with the arrangement. i'm glad i did, because it took about three tries. note that i picked up the red bars as a design element, but i imitated the black bars in the arrangement.
i also added fine lines to the quickly lettered sue.

so, this decorated envelope was a total of maybe 3 minutes.

i clicked the setting on *blogger* that asks people to type in one of those distorted security code. but i can't check to see if it is working because blogger knows that it is me. so, would someone please leave a comment and tell me if they have to type the distorted security code before the comment goes through. thank you very much.

sue's thank you 1

a couple weeks ago i posted 5 plain envelopes with the name sue, to start my thank yous to susan mashman, who inspired me (along with others) to keep going on the blog. this week, i was going to post the 5 envelopes and show how i finished them. of course, on the very first one, i just made a big fat mess and threw it away. i have a strict rule about saving messes (rather than throw it away)...but then, i have a stricter rule about breaking rules. so i did another version of the big S...and i like this one. i will put the address in very tiny, all caps, at the bottom in a dark charcoal gray....or maybe white.

where is the mimi challenge that was supposed to begin today? bumped ahead. organization is not my middle name.


below is a very fun postcard from smash-girl :-)
thank you so much.

between jackie and smash-girl, i have several hundred new envelopes to post. where will i find the time to scan them??? i could post two a day...but that seems extravagant.

sheaff sunday

how cute is this. a while back, i had a post with a dog's tongue hanging out (on the back of an envelope) and way back, i had a cow on the front of an envelope, licking the stamps.

this is from the collection of a generous person, dick sheaff, who collects all kinds of ephemera and has it on a website. he gave me permission to post his treasures on my blog.

http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/

you can spend a few hours or days, surfing through everything on his website to find all of his envelopes. or you may just leisurely click on my blog every sunday. for a while, i will have sheaff sundays and jackie saturdays. monday thru friday will be mostly mine. although, i have been receiving some really nice snailmail from blog readers. so, i want to share those, too.

jackie left and right

if you have looked back at the early years of this blog, you have seen a ton of mail to jackie and quite a few from her. we were penpals who had never met in person for quite a while. after we met, the snail mail slowed down. but she does read the blog and this was her response to my blog post about ending the blog. (which I did not do- but the mere mention of ending generated some very nice mail)

i really appreciate that she took time to struggle through writing with her left hand and i REALLY hope the tennis elbow subsides. i had a bout with t.e. myself and had to stop writing for a while. (then a few days ago, i rammed the snow shovel into one of those uneven slabs of concrete that you can't see because of the snow...and jammed my elbow so hard i thought i was going to be out of commission for a while, but, it seems to be ok...dang...that snow is dangerous)

i also wanted you to see some examples of her right handed work and will be scanning and posting some. she does fun casual envelopes as well as some very high-end fine art watercolor and gouache envelopes on fancy-schmancy arches paper.

this looks like it was done with a ruling pen. love that dot.
a few days ago i was thinking i needed to add an i to my name...duh...all i need to do is use a lower case j