Obsession

As some of you may know, I've been known to make AMMMMAAAAZING birthday cards. For those of you that don't know, well, I make AMMMMAAAAAAZING birthday cards, and yes, I'm very modest about it.

The problem with making super-cool-personalized-birthday-cards, is that you have to make or find an envelope that can go with it. Until recently this has been something that I have always struggled with. I would either have to find any old envelope and destroy the integrity of the card by folding it in ways it was never meant to be folded . . . ooooooor, try to create my own envelope out of regular old 8" X 11" piece of paper. Neither situation was ever ideal.

Then, one day, the brilliant Martha Stewart added a new product to her ever growing spectacular line of craft supplies. The envelope maker 5,000*!

Fate knew that we were meant to be together, and without even asking for it, I received one for my birthday.

As most of you know, obsessions don't happen over night.

Was I in love with my new toy? Absolutely.

Did I use it whenever I made someone a birthday card? Of course.

But I wasn't spending all my free time making envelopes. That would be crazy.

Then something changed. The planets aligned, inspiration struck and an obsession was born!

What can you do to anything . . . and I mean ANYTHING, to make it adorable?

Just. make it. smaller.

So that's exactly what I did. It started out with your regular-old-run-of-the-mill multicolored cardstock . . .





. . . . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

.

Then I started using patterned paper . . .



. . . . . .

. . . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

.

And then my mind went above and beyond the call of duty and came up with this little masterpiece . . .



I know what you're thinking, "Well that's just a plain old black envelope with a yellow liner, Madelyn. Ain't nothin' too special about that." ( Yes, you're a hick in this situation.)

You poor naive, son of a bitch. It's so, soooooo much more . . .



BAM! . . . I told you.

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Doubt me.

You may now pin these pictures to Pinterest.

Oh, and in case you want to see all of them beautifully aligned in all of their spectacular magnificence . . .



And now the front.



* This is not the actual name of the envelope maker, but it should be.