Most of my cards include bulky items/embellishments and rarely fit into a regular envelope so I often wrap them in tissue and mail them in plain, old manilla envelopes. But the envelopes look so boring & give no clue to the goodness that lies inside! I've noticed that our Post Office is now selling colorful, decorative boxes & envelopes but they can be very pricey and often cost as much as the handmade cards I'm sending. So I decided to see if I could dress up my plain envelopes a little and I wanted to make sure that they would go through the handling process and still look good when they arrived. So I started by painting them with paper paint (regular acrylics have alot more water in them & can cause the envelopes to wrinkle). I just brushed the paint on with a foam brush and let it dry for a few mins., this doesn't take long at all. Next I die cut a flower from patterned paper and a center from solid paper that is large enough to write the name & address of the recipient. I adhered the flower with a strong adhesive and also added tiny dots of craft glue around the edges to make sure that it stayed put. For the return address I used a journaling block that I cut in half to fit and adhered it in the same way. You could run these through a Xyron if you have the big one and that would work well also.
I added paper to cover the envelope flap and a border along the bottom that I cut with decorative scissors. Lastly I stitched around the entire envelope & flap, staying close to the edge.
I love how it looks and when I took my decorated parcels to the Post Office the clerk thought they were very cute & had to show them to all of her co-workers, I was a little embarrassed but mostly pleased at the attention they got. This was really easy to do. Wouldn't it be fun to open your mailbox and find something besides the usual plain old mail, I think so :)
On a personal note, in the past few weeks so many of my friends & family have been going through very difficult times. Some have lost family members, one friend lost her beautiful home in a fire and my dear, sweet Aunt underwent a major surgery. It really does seem like troubles come in groups sometimes. I came across this quote recently and it really hit home: "thy fate is the common fate of all, into each life some rain must fall". Difficult times can be hard to weather but it does make you truly appreciate the good times and the blessings in our lives. For all of my friends & family I continue to send my love & prayers to you and hope that time will begin to heal some of the hurt. delisa
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