DIY: Envelope Liners

July is here and I swear I'll be making a bunch of my own supplies to send off with a stamp on it. Half of my friends are at a summer camp, and that requires a lot of stationary - plain old stationery. So I thought, why not spice some of it up? Enjoy the tutorial - there's a snippet at the end that will teach you how to make your own envelopes :)



So first up you will need:

• scissors
• a gluestick
• envelopes
• magazine paper/patterned paper
• a pen or pencil

 

For my envelopes, I'll be using some magazine paper from an IKEA catalog, but you can use a thicker paper to add some sturdiness to your envelope instead.

Then taking your envelope, trace around it on the back side of your paper. This ensures that you won't get pen or pencil marks on the actual liner and allows for some mistakes. After doing so, make the template a little smaller to fit inside the envelope by either drawing another "template" inside the template, or eyeball it while you're cutting it out.

Once you've cut it out, put the liner into the envelope and crease where the flap would be by folding the original flap on the envelope. If you don't have an allowance for the sticky part on the envelope, trim the liner to the right size. Once it's the right size, you can now take your gluestick and glue the flap to the envelope's flap. 

You don't have to glue the rectangular part of the liner as it holds itself in place with your letter, but to make sure your friends don't tear apart the envelope in order to read your letter, secure your envelope with a sticker, washi tape, or any adhesive that will keep them from ripping up the seams.

And voila! You can now customize any envelope you have on hand :)

But if you don't have any on hand, don't fret - making envelopes are easy.

I've always had to make my own envelopes for my stationery paper, as the standard envelopes were too big to hold the long and thin pieces of paper I wrote on. I've tried multiple ways to make these, but the heart way was the way to go.

In order to make your envelope, cut out a heart by folding a piece of paper in half and cutting it a curve into your paper. Then with the "v" end of it, fold it up 1/3 ways on the center crease. Using the crease you just made, fold in the the two sides so that it's perpendicular to the first crease. 

Now you'll have a crease that will form your flap and your two side seams. Taking the "top" of the heart, fold it up all the way to the flap crease to finish up your envelope! You can leave it as is in order for the recipient to open up a heart letter OR you can glue the two sides (the second and third crease) to the last crease (top of the heart). 

If you need a visual in order to create the envelope, let me know. :)

Stay golden,

C.