The Lowly Envelope

The poor lowly envelope often takes a back seat to the fancy invitation inside. It's been a goal of mine to try to find a way to fancy up envelopes to match their beautiful contents!  And not just with calligraphy, which is an easy out. Here are a few that I've found that fit the bill.

 

(Gold foil dots. Really elegant.)

 

(Only concept right now. But how cool! The route between the 2 addresses is mapped!)

(Ahem, leather lined envelopes with a thread closure. 

Not sure how these would make it through the mail unscathed...)

And for an extra bonus, here is a woman mailed herself 130 envelopes embellished with pictures and even a crossword. It turned up in her mailbox with the note "Solved by the Glasgow Mail Centre."  I love this so much I might have to try it out myself!

Pencil Shavings art

Along the same lines as the previous post, but this one with pencil shavings. It's amazing how the most mundane objects can get a smile when used so cleverly! Check them all out on Marta Altes' site.

Brock Davis

 

Brock Davis has more imagination than almost any artist I have recently seen. I was tipped off to his work via Collosal and I just can't stop being amazed.

New Father's Day printable!

New Father's Day printable card up in the etsy shop. Check it out!

Laser cut wedding invitations

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw these invitations on Oh So Beautiful Paper. Every detail is stunning, from the little heart cut out of the bottom of the tree to the string tie and tag. Kind of makes you wish there were always occasions for you to send out invitations! Go check out the whole suite.

One man, 100,000 toothpicks

I just stumbled on a fascinating blog called Colossal. I am loving just about everything he has posted, but this piece in particular was wild. In artist Scott Weaver's own words: "Rolling through the bay is an abstract toothpick sculpture of San Francisco. It has about 100,000 of toothpicks. The amazing part, is that is has four ping pong ball paths that roll through different landmarks of San Francisco. I have spent about 3000 hours on it over a period of 34 years and the only glue I use is Elmer’s."


Read more and see more images and a video of the ping pong balls in action here.

Brand New

I am always interested in seeing and reading critiques when companies come out with either new logos or a refresh of their old branding. Brand New is a site that follows the redesigns and offers insights into the process, comparing type faces, colors and general feel. It makes for interesting reading, especially when you didn't even know that a redesign was in the works for a particular company, like this one for AOL's instant messenger which brings back fond memories of late night chats with friends all over the world. :)