the elevated envelope

Back in the winter, I signed up for the “Elevated Envelope” exchange. I would be making four envelopes to exchange with four other people. May (the deadline) seemed so far away at the time…and the deadline came and went, and today, I finally sat down to make mine. The original plan was to embroider the Big Dipper on envelopes (using lovely French knots in shimmery thread on dark paper)…but then, I checked the blog one day and saw that someone else had done constellations…BOO! Then, I was super-mad at myself for over-thinking my plan and not just going for it.

Still stuck in the embroidery mindset, and wanting to use my new neon embroidery thread, I decided to embroider arrows on faux bois paper and then make some glittery neon notecards (inspiration found here on For the Love of…) for the letter inside. (Sidenote: Martha Stewart’s neon glitter was totally worth the drive to FOUR Michaels to find it!) I protected the stitches by sliding everything into a cello sleeve, then labeling and putting a stamp on that. I didn’t want to cause a mail machine malfunction. I think they ended up looking simple but pretty…and fun to receive.

I have to admit, I really love the neon trend. I love that it feels like summer and when it’s one or two neons paired with a neutral color…unlike the neon of my childhood, which was an explosion of eye-popping colors. I had this really fabulous white cotton tank patterned with neon orange, yellow, pink, red and green flamingos and it had a pleather green & pink sun & flamingo accent on the shoulder…it was awesome…especially because I probably paired it with some sort of neon short…

And that is exactly why I probably won’t be wearing neon this summer…just crafting with it.