I sent this letter to my pen pal Sirpa in Finland. (Wow, is the mail service between the east coast of the USA and Finland ever fabulous! Have I mentioned I can exchange mail with Finland significantly faster than with the midwestern USA? But I digress.) Sirpa blogged about this letter when she received it, and she also posted lovely images of the back of the envelope and the inside of the stationery; if you want to see those, take a look at her "Beautiful letter" blog post.
I used Japanese washi tape to form the top and bottom border. I had been noticing it online and on letters and mail art from other correspondents, and I have to say, it's really neat stuff. One can remove it easily, and it is essentially paper tape (we also call it masking tape here in the USA) and can be easily torn by hand. It tends to look pretty classy, and the designs are more sedate than some of the plastic "deco tape" options. Anyway, I bought about 7 or 8 different designs, mostly patterns and stripes, and I've really been having fun with them. I got mine from PrettyTape on etsy, and was very pleased with her prices and service.
