escort cards

this blog is about envelopes and this morning i was writing out a set of escort cards (the kind that go in little envelopes) and i spotted a very fun name on the list...mr. john hancock. i did an envelope using the same style of writing as all the others, but then i made this one, in case the bride wants to surprise mr. hancock. or maybe mr hancock always gets a special escort card. i wonder if he is a relative of john hancock?

mixed up

this one did not scan very well. and it's mixed up in the numbering system. i do know i used a dried up copic marker for the broad strokes and purple details. if i allowed myself to have a complete set of the broad copic markers, i'd have serious trouble leaving my studio.

graceful contest - last reminder for this year

this is a practice page from jackie placed on a black sheet of paper. she did find some really good nesting material and put it behind the cut out section. somewhere i have a photocopy of her winning entry which i will find and post. it was really beautiful. the deadline to enter this year is april 30. google graceful envelope for details and to see lots of past winners.

my mailbox (from jackie)

this just in from jackie :-)two down, 8 to go.

outlines and inlines

there are lots of outlining examples on the blog. this one has inlines, too. this one is a little too scribbly, but the layout is fun.

jackie 20.1

it is always hard to remember how much i was planning and how much just happened. there are several places where these letters connect that make all the pieces work together. mostly, it illustrates that letting things touch creates interesting shapes and spaces. too often, people leave a lot of space between elements and then things just float. leaving space can be beautiful, but, it is trickier than just packing it all in like sardines.

it was hard to post that poinsettia below because it is so rough. this is a better example of taking enough time to do it right. i squared off all the edges of the black which would have taken some time. but i do see one spot i missed.

sandy 15

i like the idea of this. the lettering imitates the style of lettering on the stamp. and the flower is a little bit like the one on the stamp. i really do enjoy drawing flowers, so it is too bad that i do not have time to do a nice version of this one, but it should serve as an inspiration for all the other flower stamps. it's nice to just repeat the image, LARGE and keep the address small. if you do not know how to draw, you can enlarge the image on a scanner or photocopier and trace it. if it is a current stamp, you can take an image off the USPS website, paste it into a word doc and enlarge it.

sandy 19

this one was lost in the list of very old posts, as a draft. just need to get it posted so that my elaborate filing system stays in order. ok, all the people who actually know me can stop rolling around on the floor laughing.

my mailbox

this one arrived yesterday. it is a thank you from jeri hobart. she was last years winner in the graceful envelopes contest. if jeri would like to send me scans of any of her other envelopes, i would be happy to post them. and she has a website. if she wants more visitors to her website, she is welcome to leave the address in the comment section. her pointed pen work is fantastic. the envelope is addressed to jean & wilma because my mom, wilma, helped host a bunch of scribes who were in town for a workshop. thanks jeri. maybe i should start a contest to see who can have the highest number of labels. so far jackie is in first place, but the followers of this blog would probably love to see more jeri envelopes :-)

sandy 20

the horizon on any stamp is a useful design element. extending the line divides up the white space. not sure why i wrote the name where i did. the address chunks aren't working very well. but, i've seen worse

abstract stamps

probably a little too much curve on the line. just filling in three of the spaces is enough. if you had time, filling in all of them would be fun. it is done with black marker, and colored pencil, which is then blended with the colorless blender. the light pencil lines will be the address. the line above the names will be the last name.

my mailbox

another letter from a friend who knows how to play around with stamps and letters. i like how the stamp on the left is lined up with the horizon on the right stamp. and the floral letters are lovely. yesterday i spent some time with a local penpal on envelopes and flowers. i should have pulled this one out. hope it inspires her.

jackie - cary grant

while looking for something else, i found cary grant. the blog is looking pale, with all those wedding samples. and cary looks nice next to grace. this is gold gel pen on black linen paper. minimal amount of planning on the spacing.

sandy 18

hmmmm....i can't see this one clearly enough to determine if i used ink or a marker. i will have to post this and then make a comment. either way, it is beautiful stamp. wouldn't it be fun if i could have my own faux postage stamp of myself done in an engraving like this? i suppose it could be done. there are still people creating this kind of line art. would somebody please research this for me?

wedding envelopes

this is a sample that shows the *problem* with people who want to update the mr and mrs format. they think that mr and mrs john smith does not give equal attention to the wife. but, they still want the formality of mr and mrs. rumor has it that it was martha stewart who first suggested this format. it worked out fine on this envelope because it is very wide. some calligraphers really object to trying to fit so many names on one line. i do not care for the format, but, i'll do it without complaining. the only thing i refuse to do is mr and mrs john and mary smith. that has *and* twice. if they want mr and mrs as well as both first names, i insist they convert it to mr john and mrs mary smith and i reserve the right to use & whenever necessary.

wedding envelopes

most wedding invitations are pretty traditional. it's always fun to address the more contemporary styles. i like the use of all lower case, too.

sandy 17

quick interpretation of the font on the stamp.

wedding envelopes

it has been pointed out that i do not have any samples of wedding envelopes. here is a sample with Bickham Swash. it is one of my favorites to write. i do not use dip pens and ink very often. i prefer to make it look like someone just addressed it using their regular penmanship. i suppose it looks like better than average penmanship, but it does not look like someone who can do a perfect copy of a font.

my mailbox

this one arrived a couple days ago from a well known mail artist who shall remain nameless unless she decides to make a comment;-)

i like how she, too, comes up with interesting arrangements of the elements.

sandy 16

this one is only good for people with really short addresses. although there are ways to insert longer addresses. use finer tip pens. i like the stamp in the wrong corner. yes, it is perfectly ok to put the stamp in the wrong corner. even though some postal workers will point out that they prefer the upper right corner, they still have to accept the letter if it has a stamp.

sandy 13

quick and sloppy. what can i say? even though the stamp has no horizon line, there is that chunky line of type at the bottom. it seems to help to give the big name something to *sit on*

sandy 11

sandy does have a good name for decorated envelopes. this is just done with markers. the stamp is one of the cool engraved stamps. it would have been fun to do this one in ink with a real nib.

sandy 12

i'd love to get my hands on a lot more of these stamps. just did the houses very quickly with the zigs. doesn't really matter how rough they are. little square houses with triangle roofs are always happy. channel your inner kidlet when trying to draw elements that are on the stamp. as picasso said, "every child is an artist. the problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." and... "it took me four years to paint like raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

portraits

in my spare time, i am becoming a portrait artist. stick figures are really hot right now. this is the rough draft of a piece that is soon to be printed...wait until you see the finished art...

tulips

there should be one more tulip if i keep digging. this one is just a little rectangle and then i give the zig zag top to the flower when i outline it. the overall shape of some tulips is rather boxy. so, they do look a bit like tulips. nobody would mistake them for daisies.

all three of these are done with markers. do the marker first, then outline. they look better with the little gaps and white spaces, imho.

suggestion

this envelope arrived in the mail from one of my followers. there is an invitation on the reverse side of the envelope to "add what you want." the po did not cancel this stamp, so, i am tempted to remail it. my conscience would demand that i add another stamp.
decisions decisions. do i keep this in my collection, do i add to it, do i add and return.

leaf

this was a leaf that fell off a plant. i have a roll of sticky film, like contact paper, only i think it is a different brand. it seems thinner and shinier. i sandwiched the address in with the leaf. i have not seen this idea done for the graceful envelope, so anyone with time to enter (by april 30th) is welcome to use this idea. it will take very little skill to make something more beautiful than this. i suspect it was a little prettier when the leaf was *new.* however, those nasty italics were never *pretty*

sandy 10

cute cute cute. any surprise that i love stamps with envelopes on them???? has anyone started a blog to make fun of people with mail obsessions?

sandy 9

i mostly love all the love stamps. they should re-issue a page of 20 different ones from the past.
that technique of putting a dot or design in between each letter is one to remember. i've gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

scribbling

my scribbling friend jackie is in town and brought a few old envelopes. this one was to her daughter. there are lots with this stamp.

sandy 8

i don't know what i was thinking about when i spaced those three lines of the address. they bug me now. i guess i was lining the center line up with the middle LOVE. it should have lined up with the bottom of the n.

all of the sandy series were done really fast. i even have a group of them that are designated *extra sloppy* because i was losing momentum, but wanted to get them done. they are all bound into a little book.

sandy 7

i often times stack four letter names in a robert indiana style. it's fun to try it with 5 and 6 letter names. making the break between syllables helps with the legibility. the SA could have been a lot wider because it's easy to make a wide S. and D-N-Y are all letters that are easy to make narrow, but, i don't think i would have liked it. the lettering came first and then the outline. but with the lavender box, the line came first and then the color was filled in. i like to leave little bits of white showing. clearly, i am not compulsive.

sandy 4, 5, 6

this is the end of the pink rose series. i only did 6 before i decided to move on to other stamps. as much as i like to doodle flowers, these were not holding my interest.

after i run through 10 sandy envelopes, i'll run through a set i just found that i had completely forgotten about. more of the love stamp that is not the robert indiana stamp, but it has a colorful geometric LO stacked on top of VE. i suspect that i have more envelopes designed around that stamp than any other.

sandy 2 and 3

look at yesterday's caption for explanation of these two. i didn't save enough of these stamps, so the rest of these will not have the pink flowery stamp.

sandy 1

this is the beginning of 50 envelopes that i did for sandy for her 50th birthday. then i put them all in a book. then i showed it to her, but i asked her if i could keep it for a while because i wanted to scan the envelopes. i think that was 5 years ago.

this was the first envelope i did and i was going to do all 50 envelopes using the same stamp because i thought that was a good challenge, to see if i could come up with 50 ideas for one stamp.

how many do you think i ended up doing with this stamp?

jackie 18

ooooh. another favorite. i used a paper punch to make the j. just scribbled the rest of the name. should have slowed down on the last name. notice the perfs on the extra panels of the stamps. i wonder if they even make perfed stamps any more.

jackie 17

i'm not a big fan of the patriotic stamps, but i do like the way this one turned out. like the hodgepodge of stamps. also like the way the name turned out. for the lettering people who follow this blog, i really think that writing one name over and over is a good way to stretch your creativity. jackie and i have reflected on how our obsession with mail really stretched our skills. there was something about sending the artwork to someone else that made it somewhat more important than just practice, while at the same time, i wasn't concerned that this needed to be a serious piece suitable for framing.

my mailbox

this came last week and it has taken me a long time to figure out how to flip the scan 45-degrees. this is a example of jackie's beautiful italics that inspire me to not even try italics anymore. so happy to be receiving an abstract expressionist stamp. i wonder if i will get the whole series?

mail art show

this was one i sent to an ice shanty that was on a big lake up by the twin cities. they have all kinds of artists and activities who put up shanties on a big frozen lake. they have a mail art exhibit. anyone interested in mail art should google *mail art* and there will be lots of links to interesting mail. this idea could be adapted if you wanted to send a fun envelope to someone and had something more to say about them than just their name....like...greetings to the cute red haired girl who is having a birthday this week at 123 main street, anywhere, 50505

jackie 15

the note on the back of this one says that santa looks a little nervous and i speculate it is because he can't figure out why he is wearing a mustard colored suit. i should post all my favorite holiday cards and envelopes. many of them are not red and green.

there was a comment posted answering the question about whose alphabet was on the jackie envelope where each letter was in a square. it looks like something from lynn slevinsky. she has 4 or 5 books on marker lettering. i don't have any of them, but john neal does. i suspect they would have tons of good ideas for anyone who wants to start decorating envelopes.

jackie 13

whenever the rates go up, people complain. i actually enjoy the excuse to use double stamps. yes, it appears to be a waste of money, but, these are little works of art. the stamps are like tubes of paint.

and the stamps that feature the work of artists are often times the ones that inspire some of my favorite envelopes.

jackie 14

this one was up a couple days ago but listed as april 4th so i took it down. here it is again, reminding us to flip things around to make them fit.

jackie 12

somebody out there has an alphabet like this. i do not recall who. i do not recall where i saw this one. i do not have an exemplar for it. if anyone knows who deserves credit for this style, please leave a comment. not sure why the postal workers needed to black out the bar code at the bottom. i'll leave a note for my letter carrier to visit my blog and leave a comment.

celebrate will

my mom needed an envelope for a card going to her nephew. i wish i had all day to do variations based on this stamp.

jackie 16

no fooling, this is a picture of my first major ink spill. kristi porter had come over to work on a project and i spilled a whole bottle of ink, luckily, in the kitchen and completely confined to the white countertop. i said "oh, no" or something like that and then, to clean it up, i squirted it with windex and it turned into this beautiful design. so, i called kristi to come look at it and we admired it and took photos and then cleaned it up. the overall arrangement of the elements is not good, but i like the picture.

this series is all out of order because i accidentally posted one too soon and then i took it off, because it was dated apr 4. i'll put it back on. it was the upsidedown one

jackie 11

the green squares are cut out of the envelope. the first one was to remove a boo-boo. something i learned in college that i have used frequently over the years is that if you make a mistake, rather than fret over it and try to remove it, make the same mistake two more times and then it becomes a design element. this is a really valuable lesson. i think i'll put my lessons on etsy and sell them.