The Art of Mail – Crafting Happy Mail

When was the last time you received a card or letter from a friend in the mail? It’s not very common any more. Updating friends and family in a written letter is not as necessary now that everyone can see our events and announcement’s in real time through social media.

But that’s no reason to abandon paper correspondence. Writing a letter is an intimate conversation between two people and two people only. Sitting down to write by hand captures not only a moment in time, but also the stationary, handwriting and envelope adds to the experience for the writer and reader. In this digital age, it’s such a nice treat to receive a personal message like this. And as the writer, it’s a lot of fun to write and decorate a letter for a friend.

Sending a Christmas or Birthday card is like sending a small gift. People realized that a hundred years ago when beautiful ornate postcards were popular. These postcards were so treasured they were saved for whole lifetimes and are still easily available for collectors.

In the last several years there has been a resurgence of mail enthusiasts. They call it Snail Mail or Happy Mail and like fellow Mail Artists, they create art on envelopes with hand lettering, washi tape, stickers and other things. Some even make their own envelopes. The outside of the card has become as much of a canvas as what’s inside the envelope.

If you want to create some eye-catching envelopes we have some suggestions for you.

The Address-a-Lope is a nifty envelope stencil template. It will help make your envelopes look professionally done. There are windows for the address and the return address, so you get two different sizes. You can write out the name in bold stylized letters and then the address with neat lines underneath it. Use parts of the template or all of it.

Other items we recommend is Washi Tape, stickers, seals, rubber stamps, Dual Brush Markers and Gel Pens so you can perfect your hand lettering. Craft Warehouse has lots of these items and more in their Papercrafts and Art Pens section. Now, go write some mail!