Where envelope art came from...

Well, following that diverting discovery about envelope window plastic, it's back to business. Business, in this context, meaning making STUFF out of old envelopes. I cut them out days ago (while I was annoyed at being on hold for a long time), and at last it's time to get making.

The whole envelope paper idea came from a class I did recently with Ro Bruhn (see here for photos of the actual day!). She had us making journals out of recycled pages - one of her sample pages was paper from an opened out business envelope, and she'd painted a flower on it - it looked cool! But of course, mucking around with envelope paper goes back further than that ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See how the screen went all wiggly there? That's cos we're going BACK IN TIME! I've been through the archives, and found this. I entered a swap in 2001, where the theme was "One Stamp" - you pick one stamp, and do six extremely different things with it. It was a challenging swap. This was what I received from Danielle D'Onofrio, and it took me a few days to work out what the mystery paper was Insides of Envelopes.








I used the idea in 2002 for this : I put it in a competition (nah, didn't win...).

Along the way I showed these things to Maria, who has used envelope paper in her collages ever since, including just the last stamp club (go here to see!).












And I even found this gem in my photo collection - a book I must have made to entertain the kids. First here's the cover :












Then the first page :
"I have a shell. I live in the water. I walk sideways. What am I?"

You can see a tantalizing glimpse of the mystery animal through that envelope window....










And finally, the big reveal!

Did you guess it was a crab? Nope, me neither.

So that's the history of Why I Am Spending So Much Time Cutting Up Envelopes.

Next post is What I Did Next...

That might come later tonight, but I warn you, I have the sniffles, and am likely to collapse on my swooning couch at any moment. Especially if there's a small glass of Tokay next to it.