Decorated Envelopes: Alfred Hitchcock

I haven't abandoned the blog, just been crazy-busy. Doing a quick lunchtime post today to share pics and resources of another fun envelope theme: Alfred Hitchcock. I started out combining two movies (Psycho and The Birds), but have since gathered enough great rubber stamps to focus on each movie separately. While The Birds is my favorite of the two movies, I prefer Psycho for envelope themes.

Note: envelopes are available (with postage) as custom orders through my Etsy shop.

On to the sources! Goodness, this was such a fun search. I've been looking for rubber stamps to do this theme for months!

• Hitchcock vintage postage: eBay. (1998, 32¢, Scott #3226). See my buying vintage postage tips, here (end of post). You've probably noticed by now that my themes start with the postage. It's not essential, but a wonderful addition. 
• Rubber stamps:
• Mr. Hitchcock, standing, "Woman Screaming" (obviously Janet Leigh), and Hitchcock profile (not shown): Carmen Veranda. The website is fairly awful, but their service is good and these stamps are excellent quality! Luckily, they're all on the same page. 
• House, Four Birds & Bird on Branch: Cherry Pie Art Stamps (don't forget to color in that one window with a yellow pencil!)
• Curtain, left (also available in opposite direction) & Flock of Birds: 100 Proof Press
• Butcher knife: Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers (Out of Business (OOB) but I just spotted a similar one over at Leavonworth Jackson (direction flipped))
• Light switch: neato stuff (OOB)
• Small blood splatter: Hampton Arts - found a link for you at 123Stitch.com
• Large blood splatter & blood spray: Inkadinkado Bloody Scene (love this set!)
• Ink: London Fog, Gray Flannel, Tuxedo Black & Rhubarb Stalk, all from Tsuineko Memento
• Envelopes: PaperSource.com

Just a brief word on tips and/or my process, since I've covered the topic multiple times in my decorated envelope series:

• I'm a big fan of monochrome with a dash of color (often red), so I couldn't do these envelopes without a combination of gray and black inks. I prefer dye inks for easy clean-up.
• The largest envelope you can mail without incurring extra postage costs (barring weight and thickness), is an A9. It easily holds 8½"x11" letter paper folded in half and gives you plenty of space for stamping. A7s are also great - they are the size that I sell (so I can mail them in an A9). Envelopes shown here are not to scale. 
• Plan your layout a little. If you want to (or it looks like you might have to) overlap a stamp (see the curtain on the bottom right envelope, above), you should stamp the image that will be on top first, then mask it, so when you stamp the other image, it doesn't overlap (see top image - the knife was stamped first, then masked). Here's a link to a basic masking tutorial, but if you search for "rubber stamp masking technique" in any search engine, you should find what you need. No need to bother with masking for the blood splatter. That way lies madness. 

Next up: evil clowns or The Mummy? (I'm also working on The Wolf Man and Dracula themes, as well as The Thing from Another World.)