Mail art : recycled envelope

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my my last for this term VLVS tutorial!

This is my very first mail art project and I just hope I did it right. But then, with Mixed Media there is no right or wrong things; so I hope you do like it and I made a good job.

Here we go!

Step by step tutorial:

1. Take the old envelope and open it as shown. Cover it all with a layer of gesso and let it dry. Do not try to make the perfect coverage; just a bit is  sufficient for this project.

2. Take a few Iridescent Ann Butler's Clearsnap paint and cover the gesso over with a mix of 3-4 of them. Those paints are Gel Medium based, shiny and very thin ones. Wipe  some paint with baby wipe as shown and let it dry.

3. Tear a couple of paper rectangles and glue them with non permanent glue on the top right corner and the low left corner (this will be the place for the shipping info). Add a bit of paint around just to wet the edges of those rectangles and add  black embossing powder over the wet edges. Heat emboss the powder.

4. Peel off the paper rectangles and this is what we have now: one layer painted envelope.

5. Grab your favorite VLVS stamps and stamp them over the envelope with black Archival ink.

Actually this ink was the last one I tried over the sample piece. I tried pigmented ink  and it didn't work over the glossy paint. Then I tried solvent ink- BIG NO! Then I tried die inks- different brands- and it was still a mess. The last one left- ARCHIVAL- made the job.

 The full stamps list in on the bottom of this post.

6. As the next step I added a few stencil strokes with white Chalk It Up ESF paint over the Stencilgirl stencils and added a few more VLVS images to make it look finished. I used stencil with the words with meaning: like SECRET over the front and Inside Out on the back  and not just lovely splashes.

7. Finally, as I didn't like the colors too much, I added a few layers of another colors of the same kind of semi translucent paints, more in pinks/blues and as you see the images are still seen and the color  looks more interesting.

And this is how the finished envelope looks:

And the back of the envelope:

VLVS stamps used :

Discover Item 19024 Plate 890

Special delivery Item 19559 Plate 1451

 Writing  Arrow Item 19078 Plate 917

Deliver toItem 19562 Plate 1451 

Postal Background Item 14596 Plate 1200 Cancellations, Postmarks, Postmark Collage

Map of the world  Item 19340 Plate 1435

Tricycle  Girl  Mailing Letter  Item 19558 Plate 1451

Happy mail enclosed  Item 19560 Plate 1451

Dictionary page Item 19015 Plate 890