track 025 - coffee and letters

It's been a while! I have been extremely busy and stressed out with school lately, and haven't written a lot of letters, or at least not ones that look pretty enough to show over here. I sometimes resort to ready-made stationery, too..! However, I have received lovely, lovely mail as demonstrated here:

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow, since the battery of my camera died, had to be charged and now there's not enough light anymore to take decent photos! But just let me tell you... it's ALL SO WONDERFUL!

The green envelope you see is from Mickey, who included something very precious, which you'll see later (yes, I'm a tease). I figured that the reply required some special stationery, so I decided to give coffee a try. Now, normally I'm a tea person through and through... but when it comes to aging paper, coffee is the way to go! There are plenty of tutorials out there on the wide web on how to do this yourself, but here's my method very briefly:

1. Brew strong instant coffee.
2. Apply on letter paper with wide brush.
3. Add blotches/splatters/lines/ whatever your heart desires.
4. Let dry, or, if you're impatient like me, blow carefully with hair dryer.

Ta-dah!