National Letter Writing Month: Supplies

It's National Letter Writing Month! Writing letters is something very few of us do any more--email, facebook and text messages have made it pretty obsolete. It's super fun to get mail other than bills, at least I think so, and with Valentine's day quickly approaching, what better time to make a special letter for the people in your life?

Above I have a picture of some super cute supplies that anyone can use to whip up a batch of fancy cards: washi tape, ribbon, cardstock, stamps, stickers, paints, zig-zag scissors, baker's twine and more! You can also make some super cool custom envelopes for your cards with this tutorial.

I made this cute little card in just a few minutes, and it would surely brighten anyone's day. Maybe you can take this opportunity to make a batch of cards to send out to people you haven't talked to in awhile to brighten their day. :)

DIY Magazine Envelopes

As promised, here is a tutorial on making your own envelopes for stationery sets. While this template makes a rectangular envelope, you could certainly modify it to make squares as well, and as usual this image is scalable (the actual jpg is quite small, I printed it at 250% to make the cute envelopes shown in the tutorial--I just like cutesy small stuff, my original envelopes were much larger).


To make these envelopes you will need:

Paper or magazine pages of your choosing.
scissors or an X-Acto knife
a ruler
Envelope template (below)
glue (elmer's or glue sticks work just fine--if you do not have glue, you can go without and use stickers to close your envelope as well)

Start by printing the following template to your desired size:

Cut out your template and trace it onto your paper of choice. You could use scrap booking paper, thicker card stock, magazines, maps, old book pages, etc. For this tutorial I decided to use a jewelry advertisement from a magazine. The rose and jewelry are very Valentine's Day appropriate, don't you think? You could also use home and decor magazines to make envelopes for a housewarming party, or wedding magazine's for wedding invites and thank you's!

Once your image is cut out, as show above, you will want to take a ruler or other straight edge to aid you in folding your envelope flaps in evenly. I generally use the ruler as a guide and push my paper up against it to give me a general line of where my fold will go. If using thicker paper, you can gently score your paper to give a more defined guide, just be careful not to cut all the way through.

Now, you will want to fold all the flaps in with a harder crease. Turn your envelope over to the "pretty side" to decide which end you want to be the top and bottom. I generally like to fold over a straight edge on my "bottom" flap, but you can always leave all the points if you like that look.

Now, you will use your glue (very little is needed, so I generally use a brush to make a thin layer, or use glue stick) to glue down the bottom flap to the two side flaps. Here is your finished envelope!

If mailing these, I use white address labels to make it easy to read. You could also use white or silver paint pens on dark envelopes like this, just make sure to print clearly so the postal service can get it where it needs to go.

DIY Gift Card Envelopes

Hey everyone! I have been taking a bit of a mental health break this week (off at both jobs!) but I decided to share a quick and easy craft with you today because I just can't stay away! These are cute little office style envelopes for gift cards. There is a template available at the bottom of the post, feel free to grab it and manipulate it to any size you want in your favorite image program. While I make these to wrap up gift cards, they would also be great to make a little larger and gift recipe cards to your friends any time of year. If you have a lot of gift cards you send out at the holidays, now is a perfect time to get started on a little stash to have on hand as well. When making your template, I recommend printing it out on card stock as it is easier to trace around and will last longer than printing on regular paper. Also, the gift card envelopes I made are 2.25 inches x 3.5 inches final size. One of these days I will learn how to upload pdf files so you get things the right size to start, I swear! However, these envelopes are great for not only gift cards, but regular cards, thank you's and, as previously mentioned, wrapping up tasty recipe cards as well, so you will likely want to adapt it to any size you want.

To make your own gift card envelopes you will need:

Scrap book paper in your favorite patterns (one 12"x12" sheet will yield you 4 envelopes)
Embroidery Floss in your favorite colors
Needle
Scissors
Xacto Knife
Pack of small buttons, various colors
Glue (any glue will work for this, so use what you have on hand or just buy a cheap all purpose glue. I generally spread mine thin with a paint brush, so a cheap one of those helps too but is not necessary)
Ruler

If you don't want to buy paper, I would recommend using magazines or store catalogs. These often have at least some pages that are thicker, but if you like the images on the very thin magazine paper, I suggest using a piece of tape on the backside or your envelope where you will be sewing your button into place to help avoid tearing your paper (you could also glue multiple sheets together but that makes this project much more complicated than it needs to be). The magazine paper is an extra cute idea if you make your envelope go with your gift card: card to Pottery Barn? Make it out of one of their ads or a page from their catalog, etc.

Once you have your paper cut out in the size you want, I generally use my Xacto knife to score my folds (very gently, I really don't even push, just drag the blade gently across the paper). I score the "pretty side" of my paper, not the back. A ruler helps to keep your lines straight, if you don't trust yourself scoring the paper, you can also line up your ruler and fold against it to keep your folds crisp.

Then, I select my buttons (I generally use matching buttons on each envelope, but it is not necessary) and my embroidery floss. Sew your button into place as marked on the pattern. If you have small grommets, you can use card stock circles and grommet them into place, but again, not necessary. I try to buy special equipment as rarely as possible. When sewing your button onto the top flap you will want to sew it securely, tie it off and then rather than clip your remaining thread, sew back through to the outside of your envelope and tie a knot around the base of your button, then leave the remaining string so you can fasten your envelope shut.

Once you have your buttons attached, you will need to glue your two side flaps together. To do this, I use a small paint brush to apply a very thin layer of glue onto the back side of the shorter flap (the one with the button sewn onto it). I then fold the envelope closed, long flap down, shorter flap on top to secure them. Be sure not to use too much glue as you don't want it seeping out and sticking your envelope closed to the point it is unusable. Then, with a small amount of glue, close the bottom flap over the two side flaps. You will use the buttons and string to close your final envelope (yes, it is reusable!).

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial and have fun making these little envelopes yourselves! If you have any questions, let me know, as this all makes sense to me I would love any feedback on steps I could make clearer or if more images are needed to illustrate the process. :D

Happy Crafting!

Custom Envelopes

With Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd make something a little more traditional (we can't all do it up with zombie cards, right?).

To start, you can make a template with any size and shape of envelope you want, just carefully open all the glued down edges (an irons steam setting can help soften the glue if you have trouble). I modified an envelope I had, so that rather than triangles folding in to the middle I folded up one rectangle with 2 side flaps (as pictured). This way, the main body of the envelope will fit onto one 8.5"x11" sheet of paper or cardstock. You can choose any color paper (for larger envelopes I suggest starting with a 12"x12" sheet of scrap booking paper), to make straight folds i gently scored all of the edges with an Xacto blade before folding.

For the inside, you can use an image from any magazine, other patterned scrap book paper, an original drawing or photograph, whatever you feel fits the occasion (I used an add from a magazine-It doesn't have to be something fancy). I stuck the whole thing together with a glue stick, it's cheap and it works better than more liquid glues and dries faster with less mess.