This is truly one of the most incredible handmade envelopes, letters, and pieces of mail art I have ever received. Ever. The lovely Bianca of Goodnight Little Spoon sent me this amazing "envaccordion" a while back, and I absolutely cannot believe how much energy and creativity she put into it. She did a very fascinating blog post about how she put the whole thing together - I highly recommend a visit if you're plotzing over this beauty as much as I still am. (Warning: extremely photo-heavy post!)
I am so glad she included clear "how to open" instructions, complete with easy-to-remove tape. I made sure to photograph this before I sullied anything by opening... but it was actually quite easy to open and unfurl.
Here's the view inside the first opened flap.
It's a bunch of envelopes glued together by the flaps, and each one flips down to reveal the next one.
So of course I photographed every step of the unfolding process.
The details! The colors! The harmonious patterns!
Each envelope had one page of a letter, one ad postcard (they were all quite beautiful), and one bit of extra - a tag, a teabag, a sticker...
So here you see the whole long thing, from the envelope-open side.
And here are descending bits...
...of the incredibly fascinating...
...backs of the envelopes!
And finally, the whole long chain of the backs of the envelopes.
Wow.
If you had fun reading this and looking at the pretty pictures, and especially if you're wondering how the heck she made this, do have a look at her blog post about it. It is nearly as fun and illuminating as the envelope itself.
(Wombat stamp! Can you see the wombat stamp in the first photo? Squee!)
