Hello gorgeous sparkly readers, today I'm going to show you how to create a beautiful piece of mail art that's almost too pretty to send!  This is a great way to create custom envelopes and really impress your postie, plus it's a simple way to reuse some of your own art to make something new.   The really nice thing is that this basic technique could be used for cards, pages, envelopes anything flat.

If you don't want to make your own, there are an amazing array of beautiful stencils and masks on the market these days and this technique is versatile enough to look amazing with most of them.  If you're a regular reader of my blog then this image may look familiar, it's from a journal spread I created last year.

You Will Need

• Copic markers:  Y06, BV11, B02, BG05 & RV06
• Copic Various Ink: Colorless Blender
• Copic Multi Liners: 0.3 & 0.5
• AtYou Spica: Turquoise, Clear and Pink
• Fab Scraps Stencil: Stars
• X-Press It: Blending Card and Mask It film
• Mini Mister bottle filled with Colorless Blender
• Black acrylic paint or gesso

To Make This Yourself:

Step 1: Gather some bright colour Copic markers, your favourite paper and Mask It film.

Fold card to create envelope (or use a store bought envelope).

Step 2: Cut a speech bubble shape out of Mask It film and adhere to envelope.
Make sure to reverse ALL your images.

Step 3: Using an Airbrush add BV11

Step 4: Add Y06

Step 5: Then add B02 - start to overlap colours at this point.

Step 6: Add RV06

Step 7: Finally add BG05 to cover any remaining white areas.

Step 8: Lay star stencil over envelope and spritz with Colorless Blender, allow to dry.  You could also add pattern by spraying with Starburst spray or Glitz Spritz if you wanted to add sparkle!

Step 9: Draw design onto Mask It film (if drawing your own design make sure to
REVERSE it so your design turns out the correct way), cut out and apply to envelope.  Paint over envelope with black gesso or acrylic paint.

Step 10: Allow paint to dry for approximately 2 minutes and then carefully remove mask.  You will notice there are a few areas that need a little smoothing or filling in.

Step 11:  Use Copic Multi Liners and Spica pens to fill in gaps, decorate and address envelope, go over with black pencil to finish and darken areas.

Once all the edges are smoothed and a little extra colour added, your unique mail art envelope is complete and will look something like this.

You can watch the whole process from start to finish in the clip below:

I hope I see some amazing mail art from some of you soon, don't forget you are welcome to share your art over on the Keep It Simply Sparkly group oxo