A Mail Art Geek Out Session

Here’s my perfect morning: jasmine tea with milk and honey, a quiet house, and a handful of blank envelopes. Mail art is the ideal bite-sized project, and one that presents a delightful challenge. I love having the opportunity to hand-letter and/or create calligraphy, come up with fun illustrations, and sift through my postage stamp collection.

A couple of days ago, I decided to give myself a little reward for finishing the Beautiful Birds Calligraphy Flourishing Worksheet: a mail art morning. It was bliss, getting lost in the creation process of making unique envelopes for friends. For the first time ever, I have a geek-out video available to recap my creation session. In it, I’ll walk you through how I made each piece of mail art:

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A Mail Art Geek Out Session: Photos and Information

For more information about the mail art shown in the video, check out the photos and text below. I have several hints about how to create each one of these envelope motifs!

1. Intertwined Script and Block Lettering Mail Art

I’ve been eager to try Nico Ng’s Intertwined Script and Block Lettering Tutorial ever since I read the tutorial draft. I made a few tweaks to the technique, like leaving a bit of space around my intertwined script to help it stand out more. And, of course, I couldn’t help but add flourishes to the block lettering.

The supplies I used include:

• “Ebony Black” A7 envelope from Cards and Pockets (affiliate link)
• White mechanical pencil + black eraser (to make a draft + draw guidelines)
• Kremer 501798 gold metallic watercolor
• Bleed Proof White ink
• Brause Rose nib (in an oblique pen) – for the intertwined script
• Nikko G nib (in an oblique pen) – for the Janet Style address calligraphy

Once I finished up, I made an envelope liner using a pretty hand-drawn bluebird pattern from The Bluebird Bundle. The pattern complements the playful but elegant feel of the front of the envelope.

2. Flourished Calligraphy Bluebird Envelope

The star of this envelope is the “Listening Bluebird” from the Beautiful Birds Calligraphy Flourishing Worksheet. A Janet Style calligraphy address enhances the elegance of the piece, along with a brown flourished branch. Two triangular postage stamps play into the blue/brown color scheme.

The supplies I used include:

• “White” A7 envelope from Cards and Pockets (affiliate link)
• Basic Graphite Mechanical Pencil (to make a draft + draw guidelines)
• Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay Ink: Turquoise – for the bluebird + address
• Ziller Buffalo Brown ink – for the branch + return address (affiliate link)
• Brause EF66 nib (in an oblique pen) – for everything but the return address
• Nikko G nib (in a straight pen) – for the return address

This envelope also features an envelope liner that was created using a Bluebird Bundle pattern.

3. Hand-Lettered Envelope

This mail art features playful lettering at its best. I didn’t put much thought into kerning (letter spacing) or letter style, which teeters between serif and sans serif. Instead, I just had fun and loosely used the Breezy Hand-Lettering Tutorial as my inspiration!

• “Cobalt” A7 envelope from Cards and Pockets (affiliate link)
• White mechanical pencil + black eraser (to make a draft + draw guidelines)
• Bleed Proof White ink
• Light green colored pencil – for the letter shading
• Brause Rose nib (in an oblique pen) – This lettering may not have a right-leaning slant, but I personally find it easiest to use a Brause Rose nib in an oblique pen.
• Vintage postage stamps

This envelope’s liner is a pattern from The Letter Writer’s Complete Resource. It features illustrated birdies.

4. Playful Heart-Themed Mail Art

With its combination of bouncy lettering and flourishes, this mail art deviates slightly from my usual style. Heart-themed stamps encouraged me to scatter two different types of hearts — pink and solid white — throughout the piece.

• “Red” A7 envelope from Cards and Pockets (affiliate link)
• White mechanical pencil + black eraser (to make a draft + draw guidelines)
• Bleed Proof White ink
• Brause Rose nib (in an oblique pen)
• Nikko G nib (in a straight pen) – for the return address

I didn’t have any heart-themed patterns, so I used a pretty henna lace bluebird pattern from The Bluebird Bundle.

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For me, the fun part of snail mail is coming up with the envelopes. My goal for next week? Scrounge up something equally cool to put inside of them. I hope that you enjoyed “geeking out” with me and that these examples inspire you to make your next envelope something special!

Thanks so much for reading, and have a great weekend!

Warmly,