Envelopes

Thinking to try something new, and get a bit of practice, I signed up for a calligraphy group's envelope exchange. The theme was leaf prints--a lovely idea in theory, very messy in practice. I was out of envelopes, so I started from scratch. That is why the envelope below looks odd--it hasn't been glued together yet. The flaps sticking out at the sides are to be glued behind to hold everything together. Sorry, no pictures of the finished product; I didn't think it would be a good idea to put the ladies' names and addresses up on web.





I found out several interesting facts in the course of this project, the main one being the sharp contrast between the leaves of the Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) and the Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii). Even when the leaves are closer in size than those pictured below, the shapes are quite distinctive.


Also, while hunting for the scientific names, I ran across the trivia that the Valley Oak is the largest kind of oak found in North America. And, though it does not seem to be as widely known, Blue Oak leaves tend to make very smudgy prints indeed!