Category Archives: rubber stamps

October 18, 2012 · 11:34 am

Venus Flytrap (and more)

Meet Sally Wassink, overachiever extraordinaire!  Sally is an artist and mail artist in San Francisco who was included in the 2009 book, Good Mail Day – so it should be no surprise that she really “brought it” when she accepted this challenge. Here’s her Venus Flytrap Envelope:

Venus Flytrap Envelope

Sally says,

“I did a series of pen & ink drawings of plants and flowers, each one different.  I thought this one – the Venus Flytrap – turned out the best .  Then to my horror I realized that I had drawn it on the envelope upside down! Ack! … I guess a Venus Flytrap isn’t exactly ‘sweet,’ (but neither am I)… “

And neither am I ;)

Venus Flytrap Envelope

Envelope back.

Sally Wassink Envelope

Another of her envelopes – I love the way she used the premade rubber stamps for addressing.

Sally Wassink Envelope

And all of them together!  WOW!

To see more of Sally’s drawings and process, check out her Flickr set.  Thank you Sally – I am running out of praisy words to describe all of these beautiful creations.  Crazmazing?!

–Tara

2 Comments

Filed under crazy!, drawing, pen & ink, rubber stamps

September 28, 2012 · 10:49 am

Friday Fruity

More fruits today!  First, a beautiful grape bunch envelope by JoAnna Haugen from Las Vegas.  Beautiful!

Grape Bunch Envelope

JoAnna actually went wild and did 4 completely different fruity designs.  Here they all are together before addressing and sending them on their way:

joanna-haugen-envelopes

And last for today – Strawberries by Gwen Mills out of Huntsville, Alabama:

Strawberry Basket Envelope

Gwen says she had a really hard time with these, even though she usually thinks of herself as crafty.  THIS HAPPENS A LOT!  It’s hard to narrow things down, and I think most of us are getting some kind of creative performance anxiety.  However, as you can see, they came out great!  They were made by hand-carving a few strawberry-shaped stamps, and the green basket is actually another piece of cardstock pasted on top.

Strawberry Basket Envelope

I really love hand-carved stamps…  If you have never tried it, give it a whirl – it’s surprisingly easy.

Which cute fruit is your fave?
–Tara

3 Comments

Filed under collage, markers, rubber stamps

August 1, 2012 · 8:10 am

more stitchin!

Check out this stitched love note from Emily Sommers, who is an avid sewer from Dallas, TX.

She made her envelope by running résumé paper through her sewing machine – just a variety of stitches in straight lines (harder than it seems, I’m sure). Then it was reinforced with kraft paper to make it sturdier, cut out into an envelope shape, folded, and stuffed full of these little goodies (some stamps, a stitched postcard to send to a friend, a message on a Texas postcard, and a family recipe for Chocolate Heart Cookies):

Ah, the longhorn postcard almost makes me miss Bevo.

One of my favorite things about the look of this envelope is the type – it must have taken forever, because it was made from this cool stamp (which I just picked up at my local Staples – thanks for the tip, Emily!)

You can read all about her process, and see her other amazing sewn creations (quilts!) over on her blog, Lily June Strawberry Girl.
Tara

2 Comments

Filed under rubber stamps, sewing / stitching / embroidery

June 19, 2012 · 11:36 am

a knee-slapper (a cute one)

Sometimes my sense of humor veers into the Very Cheesy.  So my own Elevated Envelopes from the Spring exchange made me snortlaugh a little.  I am such a nerd!

The Elevated Envelope Tara Bliven

My envelopes were decorated with more envelopes.

Flying envelopes…

Elevated envelopes.

GET IT?!!

The Elevated Envelope Tara Bliven

I used leftover kraft-colored A7 envelopes, stamped them with my super cool Calligraphy Address Stamp (ahem), and then got out the spray paint again.  I can confirm that Angelique was right – there is a whole world of artsy spray paint out there.  The Montana Gold colors were verrry tempting, but I had to stick with their basic white.  (The envelopes are meant to by floating high through misty clouds, after all.)

I made the actual envelope shapes with some faux gold and silver leaf – something I’ve always wanted to experiment with.  I used an old paintbrush to paint the adhesive on in little freehand rectangles and/or envelope outlines.  Then I applied the leaf, and brushed away the excess (very messy – gold bits everywhere – keep your vacuum handy).  For the solid envelopes, I scraped away the actual envelope flap shape after the fact with a metal scoring tool.

(It honestly took forever… So if you try this, just know that upfront.)

The wings were made out of 2 tiny hand-carved stamps (fun and easy!), then I used a little more spray paint, and then I wrote the addresses in calligraphy.  Helpful Hint:  Do your spray painting after you do your calligraphy.  Duh!  Obviously the spray painted surface was uneven and hard to write on.  The ones that came out better are shown here ;)

The Elevated Envelope Tara Bliven

They took so long that I only did about 25 total – 15ish for random early bird participants, and the rest for a few friends.  Oh, plus 4 for the backlog of prize envelopes!  (February-May)  Did you get one? What did I send you?  I can’t even remember ;)

–Tara

8 Comments

Filed under calligraphy, metal leaf, rubber stamps, spray paint