Dear Everyone ~
I can date my long-simmering fascination with hand-folding envelopes back to the sweltering summer of 1995, when I met Alyson Kuhn. By example and by enchantment, she introduced me to the art of correspondence, so I refer to her as my Postal Muse. Several weeks into our nascent friendship, Alyson handed me a simple yet magical thank-you note. She’d made the envelope from a magazine page, very Florentine in feel, and she’d appliquéed B-A-R-I in little gold letters. I still have the transformative envelope, which has changed my correspondence life for the better.
And it has been followed by a never-ending procession of postcards, envelopes of all sizes, and surprise packages of epistolary ecstasy (See above!). Alyson had developed a workshop for Paper Source called Anatomy of an Envelope (which I didn’t know about until the opportunity had passed). Then, 20 years later, when I finally had a studio where I could teach, I developed my workshop, The Art of the Handmade Envelope. It was quite popular, and many students asked for a sequel, which I began to percolate on.
Last year, when shelter season made meeting in person moot, I decided to create a kit full of hand-folding materials, with detailed step-by-step instructions and charmola illustrations & diagrams by artist Emery Kennett. It has been a great success. Today, I am slightly giddy to debut MORE Art of the Hand-folded Envelope, a heartful collaboration with Alyson. Twenty-five years into our long-distance friendship, we continue to inspire each other.
The papers in the new kit are perfect envelope fodder, including rather deluxe practice sheets for noting measurements for future reference. The two “star styles” of envelope featured in the kit are (1) a true center seam open-end (lots of envelope lingo included in the hand-out!) and (2) a “backless” two-piece construction. The new hand-out also includes the instructions from the original kit for making a basic 5-ish x 7-ish envelope without a template.
Here you see a supremely summery backless envelope I made from a magazine page eons ago. The luscious front wraps around the sheet of sea-blue cover stock. This combo-construction is popular in Europe, with white or brown kraft fronts wrapping around a chipboard back. Sadly, these are not commercially made in the U.S.
Artist Janet Bouldin’s whimsical illustrations and diagrams make the kit feel almost like a lifestyle. The hand-out (a binder’s dozen of pages) is 8½ x 11 and comes in a not-hand-folded envelope with your name (or someone else's) handwritten by me on the fabulous souvenir sheet from 1966.
MORE Art of the Hand-folded Envelope
Be enveloped, Bari