ising drugs has halved the total of drug deaths since 2001. Sending people to prison, stopping their benefits and driving users underground is totally counter-productive. It does, however, grab the headlines and is attractive to the right-wing readership of papers like the Daily Mail. And that’s what counts in Whitehall.So DIY envelopes are my new thing! A friend bought me an awesome craft book for Christmas that had ready-made greeting cards inside it (see below for shopping link). But the problem was that the greeting cards didn’t fit standard sized envelopes. Last Sunday I was meeting a friend for lunch and planned to give her one of these cards, but without an envelope the card would look a bit out of place. Then my own words came back again to prompt me to action, “Create what you can’t find.” I suddenly realised that I could make my own envelope with some paper, a glue gun and embellishments. Yayyy!!  Truly, lack is the seedbed for creativity!
This envelope features a frog fastener which acts to keep the envelope closed. I had bought some frog fasteners ages ago for a cape that I planned to sew, but they had sat in my sewing box waiting for the perfect opportunity to be used. The fastener gives an Asian feel to this envelope which I just love! The overall finish is very sophisticated and almost regal.
Cut a piece of stiff paper to fit the dimensions of your card or whatever item you choose to put inside the envelope; leave at least a 1 cm margin on either side. The length of the paper should be 2 & 1/2 times the width of your card/item.
Fold the bottom two thirds of the paper upwards (N.B. it should be the width or the shorter edge that you fold upwards). Then using the red dots as a guide, glue the sides of the paper together with a glue gun or double sided tape to form a pocket.
Fold the top section of the paper downwards to create the envelope and stick one half of the frog fastener onto it, making sure it’s centred.
Then fasten the frog fastener with its other half before sticking down this half to the bottom section of the envelope.
I imagine using this envelope for a feminine or flirty occasion. It’s so very cutesy! I just used simple ribbon to create a focal point on this envelope and it’s quite effective. Since the ribbon is just used for decoration, I had to find a way to keep this envelope closed. I remembered that I had some Command picture hanging strips at home, so I just cut them into small sections and used them as my ‘clasp’ – they worked brilliantly!
Follow steps 1-3 from the ‘SophistiKat’ envelope above to make your envelope.
Cut a length of ribbon that is long enough to cover the back and front flaps of the envelope with an overhang which will be tucked under the flaps.
Glue the ribbon to the envelope and make sure you tuck the ends into the envelope and under the top flap for a neat finish. I chose to place my ribbon to the left hand side for some visual interest, but feel free to place it wherever you want.
Cut another length of ribbon and tie a bow with it. Then stick this bow onto the ribbon on the top flap to complete the envelope.
Miss Glitter Sparkles has to be the funnest envelope by far. I mean, what a great excuse to use glitter! I will warn you though, no matter how tidy you may be glitter just has a way of getting everywhere!! I even got some on my camera and I have no idea how it happened. So be prepared for a bit of mess, but it’s just so worth it when I look at this card – I just can’t be mad. I think this sort of envelope is purrfect for Hen Do invites. What do you think?
Follow steps 1-3 from the ‘SophistiKat’ envelope above to make your envelope. then use a glue stick to spread a 1 cm thick line of glue along the bottom of the envelope and pour or tick the glitter onto it.
Stick a wooden star onto the centre of the top flap and your envelope is complete!
She told you she doesn't think she has to do more than she is. She doesn't even put the phone down for you. This woman is telling you, as clearly as possible, that she's not into you, she hasn't been for a while now, and she's keeping you around by letting you get off as a bare minimum. This is not a relationship. She's getting something out of this (what, I can't guess because all I know is what I read), and she's doing the least possible to maintain the situation. 

Don't wait until New Year's, this isn't getting better. Just end it now. No more dragging it out, tear off that bandaid now so you can get past this.I procrastinated for a long time to write this blog post. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I did. I tend to procrastinate on things that matter to me. I’m also a professional writer with my own copywriting business (PLUG TIME, EVERYONE GO TO WWW.GIRLCOPY.ORG AND HIRE ME!), which means that about 25% of my writing work arrives well past your standard end-of-day on the due date. The stuff I care to write about gets into my editors’ inboxes sometime around 11:39 p.m., usually.
ALL THAT TO SAY, I really love Dad’s Garage – like, really, really love the damn theatre, as evidenced by me writing about it, posting about it on Instagram, and being a generally embarrassing fangirl. I first heard about Dad’s while living as a broke, starving actor in Seattle (I’m now a broke, starving sometimes-actor-all-times-writer living in Atlanta). I had gotten cast in the play 44 Plays for 44 Presidents (back when we thankfully only had 44 presidents), which had been produced at one point at Dad’s Garage. My director, Amanda Sox, told our cast all about Dad’s, how it was the South’s premiere improv theatre, and well-known throughout the country, if not the world. The way she described it made it sound magical. Being originally from Georgia, I vowed that if I ever moved back – in particular, to Atlanta – I would take classes at Dad’s in the hopes of eventually joining the comedy troupe. I had no plans at that point to move back home, but that’s me for you – always planning ahead, always outrageously ambitious.
Since performing in 44 Plays, I took the leap into letting my improv freak flag fly, and took classes with Jet City Improv in Seattle, got into The Groundlings classes in Los Angeles, and – SURPRISE SURPRISE – got knocked up and had to move back home (remember the whole thing about me being broke? I had $600 in my bank account when my husband I found out we were pregnant. Ugh – “we.” I hate it when couples say, “We’re pregnant,” like, calm down). So, goodbye Hollywood, hello Marietta and living with my in-laws.
It took me two years to work up the nerve after having a baby to dive back into improv and sign up for classes at Dad’s. I had taken a few other classes and gotten on teams in Atlanta while also co-founding Atlanta’s first all-LGBTQ+ improv group, Queeriety. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to apply for the Dad’s Garage Diversity Scholarship, as a member of the LGBTQ community and being a still-broke-starving-artist; so I did, several times. I finally got the scholarship on the 4th or 5th try and entered into Dad’s classes at Level 2. I took Level 3 and 4, and a bit after my Level 4 grad show, I was asked to join Dad’s Rookie team.  My West Coast dream of playing with East Coast improvisers had finally come true! I had single-handedly ended the East/West feud! I AM YOUR PRESIDENT OF THESE UNITED STATES NOW.
Bit of a digression, and I also glossed over a few things, namely, I was ready to leave Atlanta before I had gotten asked to join Rookies. I was taking job interviews back in California – like, literally flying out to San Francisco to interview for positions. I had grown up in the South and honestly, moving back home felt like I was a failure. I felt like I had gotten knocked up and now I was on a slow decline into irrelevance. Being broke and feeling broken takes its toll on a person. But Dad’s changed that for me. Being asked to be a part of the community there, and feeling like I truly belonged, whether it was playing in their Melting Pot show, in classes, or being asked to hop into a Cagematch show, really did kind of save me. It was my very own Homeless to Harvard Lifetime movie, so to speak. I don’t think there’s any shame in acknowledging that we all need validation, and feeling like the good people at Dad’s like me makes ME like me – and it gives me confidence to know that I’m doing good work, even outside of improv. With improv, I know that not one singular thing defines me. I know that in improv, I can be any singular thing.Dakota Meyer of Columbia, Ky., repeatedly ran through enemy