Envelope Art

Welcome to Camp Pygmy Hippo :)

Today you are going to send a letter. But this will not be an ordinary letter by any means. You are going to make a letter so creative, so fun that whoever is lucky enough to receive it is it going to be smiling from ear to ear when they see what has arrived. 

There will be two main components to this little project. The contents (which we will get to in the second half) and the envelope. Now I have always thought that the envelope is a very overlooked portion of the letter. I like to think of the envelope as the wrapping paper. Why use plain wrapping paper when you can let your imagination run wild! 

The first thing that you will have to do is to take a minute and think about who you would like to send this letter to. It can be anyone at all. It could be a cousin, a grandparent, a friend that you haven't seen in a while. Or it could be someone that you don't know very well at all, a older neighbour down the street that might be lonely, or the grocery clerk who always talks to you at the store. Next you will have to brainstorm what this person might like to see decorating their envelope..This is where the options ares really endless. You could draw a spaceship, a cat, a donut wearing a swimsuit.. and if drawing is not your thing no worries, Stamps, stickers, tissue paper, googley eyes, pictures cut out from magazines...Anything can work. That is my favourite thing about projects like this. You don't need to have anyone drive you to the craft store for a billion supplies. Just work with what you have around your house. Once you have your envelope ready to start decorating there is only one rule. You have to leave space to write your persons name and address in the middle of your envelope and you have to leave space for your return address in the top left corner. That's it! Now decorate away! And remember art doesn't have to be perfect. Sometimes art doesn't go as you had planned but if you just keep going it can magically turn into something great that you hadn't even considered before. 

Now that you have the envelope done it's time to think about what might fit nicely in that envelope. In general it works best if whatever you put in is light and thin. You might be out for a walk and find a rock the size of a pineapple and you might think to yourself "my grandpa would really love this rock." That's great and you should definitely give him that rock..but not in this envelope :). Things that do fit well are letters, drawings, paintings, poems, stories that you have written or photos of your dog. If you write a letter you can decorate the edges all around the letter to make it really pop.

That's it! When you are all done stuff whatever you have made/written into your envelope and give it a lick. Pop on the address and stamp and mail away. Someone is going to have a great day because of you :)