Mojo...by Mail

I know I reported several days ago that I had no desire to create. Well, some of you must've said prayers or something, because I was able to create a card today, and this innocuous envelope, besides delivering my son's last middle school report card and standardized test scores, brought some mojo back to my stamping. I know that seems highly unlikely, but remember, things were a bit dire.

It all began as I opened said envelope, and a really cool pattern emerged. Okay, so it was the security pattern, but still! I'd never thought about how it might serve as a form of patterned paper before, and I bet you haven't either.

I opened it carefully, read the contents, and put it on my craft table and went to work. When I arrived home, I wasn't feeling like doing any cleaning (doing SO much of that at work each shift), so I wandered into the craft room to see what might happen. Sometimes putting yourself in the environment with the right frame of mind produces results. This can happen in the kitchen too when you're feeling uninspired about dinner, but that's another story and it usually happens to my husband Bob, not to me.

I loved that long, narrow rounded opening, so I cut away the flaps that made the envelope and tried to peel the plastic covering from said space. No go, so I cut it away with scissors.

Since I learned today that Wonderful You is retiring, I pulled it out to see what could be done to fill that rectangle. I stamped sample leaves with Brocade Blue and Ballet Blue before landing on Bashful Blue as the best match to the pattern. Then, before stamping on the envelope, i tested it on a part I'd cut off, to see how it would look. It really was cool, so I stamped randomly all over it.

The envelope is a bit narrower than 5.5" wide, which is my card size, so I added a strip of Brilliant Blue to add some more color to the pallette. Since I have a thing for blue and orange together, I added a strip of Tangerine Tango to this. Then I used these colors for the flower, going direct to rubber with a BB Stampin' Write Marker and a blender pen and TT reinker. Old Olive is on the stem.

I chose the sentiments from long-ago retired Love Matters, because I wanted something other than the set offered, and it needed to be small. These were stamped in Bashful Blue in two steps so that it would fit inside the space.

I'm quite pleased with the finished product and will be on the lookout for more of these envelopes to arrive among the junk mail that usually stuffs my box. In fact, I have another piece of mail that came over the weekend that has potential. We'll see what I can come up with using that.

Don't forget that this awesome set is retiring, and you'll have until the end of the month to get it. See Monday's post for more details...