There’s the Art of Letter writing and there’s the Art of Handwriting, but there’s also the Art of Creating Stationery. There’s just so much art involved in writing letters. It’s wonderful – so creative. We can find papers for sale to use for the letters we write, but what fun to create our own stationery. We don’t have to be brilliant artists. We just have to let our creative juices flow. There’s inspiration everywhere.

We could create a simple sketch describing where we’re sitting as we write our letter or we can focus on a favorite thing, study it, and try to capture it on paper. I happen to love wildflowers so I’ve created a line of wildflower stationery. Here is one of my designs. I like to write a little information about the flower I’ve drawn around the edges of the paper.

I love writing letters on large sheets of paper because then I’m able to form the letters of my words larger too and this helps make my hand writing more legible and attractive.

But variety is the spice of life so sometimes I create cards 4 by 6 in size and I add blank pages inside so thoughts can flow, not be hampered by a shortage of paper. Who likes a short letter? I tie the pages together creating a sort of booklet.

Sometimes I’ll draw my fountain pen with a hello and a flourish at the top of my letter paper, a few pretend drops of ink to add a fun touch. You see, the most simple ideas can make for interesting papers.

This is a page from the book I wrote, my book of letters, and the art for this particular letter was simply flowers created by pressing my finger into ink pads and pressing the ink onto the paper. You see, you don’t have to be able to draw to create fun designs for your stationery. Creativity comes in lots of forms.

Clipping pictures from children’s books and adding a bit of colored pencil or chalk can create a nice touch for a letter – a little whimsy.

Adding press-on flowers that are purchased can be fun especially if you add a little of your own flourishes around them. There are a lot of great do-dads to attach to letter paper – feathers, dried herbs, flowers, even weeds; You can create collages using articles you find lying around your house – ticket stubs, candy wrappers, colorful designs on packaging, leaves, anything and everything – just arrange them in an artistic manner onto your paper.

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One of my standard designs is a simple flower I create on paper.

I create this basic flower design using two ingredients. The stem, leaves and grass are cut from a handmade paper I found in a paper store. The blooms comes from a pack of scrapbook paper containing many sheets of various colorful circles. It’s fun and quite easy to whip up this design and for pennies I can create lots and lots of stationery. The basic design is always the same, but the blooms are different.

A little creativity goes a long way in creating your very own unique stationery. The Art of Letter writing has many components – your handwriting, your stationery and then of course your thoughts – all this shared with others. It’s all Art and it’s all wonderful fun.

So go ahead and buy stationery if you can find it or use plain paper if you like, but don’t miss the chance to exercise your creativity. Dress up that plain paper if the spirit moves you to do so. You’ll amuse yourself and your pen friends will enjoy seeing what you come up with too.

Enjoy!