Artelopes-- Hyundai Sun Bowl

This was our third return of artelopes since starting this. I started with only five going out to get a little feel on their returns. While the plan since deciding to start them was to make it a signature for my envelopes while doing mailings. Getting a little feel on whether or not to continue what in business cards terms were risky letters. If the artelopes didn't get very good returns the plan was to maybe wait until January, or February before thinking about taking risks again. I would still consider some sure things but risks would be out.
        
 In October I thought it would be fun to start collecting cards from NBA Developmental League teams, college bowl games, and NASCAR racetracks. These envelopes were sent out pre-artelopes, and my return rate simple put sucked. The lot was the final six NBA business cards missing, two bowl games, three NASCAR tracks, and the Washington Nationals (my last MLB need). The Knicks, Nationals, and Bristol came back while 9 letters are still MIA. Four of the envelopes were high risk while the NBA should have been sure things. NBA teams always send returns, even if it is pocket schedules instead of business cards. So nothing from the NBA is startling.
      
We have had some mail delivery problems in the past so this could be the case again. Our address is shared with a family on 10th, and another on 8th with the exact same house address. There have been a couple times in the past we got some VIP letters for these addresses dropped in our mailbox. While I always go and deliver their stuff personally. They might not be as willing to put out the effort, and just throw them out or drop them back in the mailbox with wrong address written on them. These things always work themselves out after a few months, but who knows how much mail goes lost. With this in mind as returns seem to stop I usually wait until things seem to be back on track before starting up once more.

While this sounds like a trashing of the Post Office. In all fairness they aren't the only delivery service that has done this. Last year the family on 8th hand delivered the Kyle Busch 1/24th car ordered by my wife. I believe it was Fed Ex that made this mistake. So at-least the boxes make it here if they are delivered wrong. Now that I've rambled on enough, how about I share the artelope and the return.

This was the only artelope that the daughter has let me do so far. While it was somewhat simple I had an idea for it and she didn't want to deal with doing that. The idea was to just do the bowl games logo over the top of the mailing address.

Much like the daughter, my art needs some improving and will get better as this project continues. The only problem is she is enjoying the idea so much that we have four artelopes ready to be sent out on Monday. One of the four is mine, and I had to do it while she was out. The bad part is the more she does the more confident she will get and my opportunities will get even fewer. That's a good thing though as she loves to draw and getting better at it is what I'm hoping for.

While my return seems small it was exactly what I was looking for.

                                                                      RESULTS::
                                                                 2 business cards
                                                                       14 days
                                                                 Successful return