Art mail tutorial with ESF

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my my new Mixed Media tutorial!

This is my very first mail art project and I just hope I did it right. But then, with Mixed Media there is no right or wrong things; so I hope you do like it and I made a good job.

Here we go!

Step by step tutorial:

1. Take the old envelope and open it as shown. Cover it all with a layer of  ESF gesso and let it dry. Do not try to make the perfect coverage; just a bit is  sufficient for this project.

2. Take a few Iridescents Ann Butler's Clearsnap paints and cover the gesso over with a mix of 3-4 of them. Those paints are Gel Medium based, shiny and very thin ones. Wipe  some paint with baby wipe as shown and let it dry. I initially used Limelight, Sheer Copper and Lagoon, but later I added some more colors over the first layer.

3. Tear a couple of paper rectangles and glue them with non permanent glue on the top right corner and the low left corner (this will be the place for the shipping info). Add a bit of  Tangelo paint around just to wet the edges of those rectangles and add  black embossing powder over the wet edges. Heat emboss the powder.

4. Peel off the paper rectangles and this is what we have now: one layer painted envelope.

5. Grab your favorite VLVS stamps and stamp them over the envelope with black Archival ink.

Actually this ink was the last one I tried over the sample piece. I tried pigmented ink  and it didn't work over the glossy paint. Then I tried solvent ink- BIG NO! Then I tried die inks- different brands- and it was still a mess. The last one left- ARCHIVAL- made the job.

6. As the next step I added a few stencil strokes with white Whipped Cream Chalk It Up ESF paint over the Stencilgirl stencils and added a few more VLVS images to make it look finished. I used stencil with the words with meaning: like SECRET over the front and Inside Out on the back  and not just lovely splashes.

7. Finally, as I didn't like the colors too much, I added a few layers of another colors of the same kind of semi translucent  Ann Butler's  Iridescents paints, more in pinks/blues, such as Lipstick, Orchid  and Ocean Surf  and as you see the images are still seen and the color  looks more interesting.

And this is how the finished envelope looks:

And the back of the envelope: