from ruth

this arrived from my penpal, ruth. she used sharpies, not one of her go-to tools. she is very accomplished with the pointy nibs. it's a fun idea - wish i had more spare time.

thank you, ruth.

carolyn kelley evans

this started as random loops to test a set of sharpies to see if they were worth keeping. then i added the silver stems. i goofed up her name with the silver gel pen - so i used some non-see-thru sticker paper to cover it up and then used the sharpies.

carolyn kelley evans has been known to decorate envelopes. she is a busy person, so, i'm tossing this out as an idea that she might want to try.

2nd envelope - in carolyn kelley evans belated birthday week - bonus post.

cathy green daisy

i tried that big sharpie daisy design one more time and i just had to add some dots. while i like the symmetry of the whole project - at a certain point i just have to put in something that does not fit with the pattern.
i hope i don't mess it up when i put in the real address. i'm going to actually mail this one. you can see the faint mississississississippi across the petal
the name will go above and the street and zip below.

i will be curious to hear from alyce on whether she is late to another appointment because she is mesmerized by the flower. it does have sort of a hypnotic quality to it.

cathy 3 pink dot

this one isn't finished. there will be a third pink dot in the zip code. cathy sent me some of these stamps, so i was just having fun thinking of ideas to go with them. i will be really sad when the rates go up. these are not forever stamps. the p.o. issues one design at the current rate for bulk mailing. you can order ten at a time online.

i used a chisel sharpie. i really like them for neuland-esque style writing. the tip is not crisp at all, but, you can easily square off the strokes with a white gel pen.

candy scribble

one of the first envelopes to candy. she is my oregon rep. the first layer was the green CAN with DY below. it was a miscalculation caused by poor planning. of course, being frugal, i did not want to throw the envelope away. the more i added to it, the more i disliked it. the more time i invested, the less i wanted to throw it away. it was really close to getting tossed...then i saw the stamp and added the flowers. and i added more details and shadows after i did the scan, so it ended up being even better than this. sorry, i don't have time to keep rescanning. at a certain point, i just have to toss this stuff in the mail.

jackie no. 4 (of 10)

quick choppy letters. did all the green strokes first. too much space between the i and the e, so i tucked the davis in between. sometimes poor planning is more interesting. and that's weird how the A has two yellow dots and the C has none. sharpie markers and zig zags on the outline. wacky.