Paper Station

Διαβάστε αυτό το ποστ στα ελληνικά.

My latest crafty obsession is making envelopes. There are so many materials, sizes, uses, ways to make them!

I drew inspiration mainly from my penpals and letters that I received which contained handmade envelopes. Either small envelopes containing gifts, stickers, or teabags, or even the envelope containing the letter itself, I got many ideas and tried to make my own.

There are various ways to make envelopes and you basically need just a few tools and materials: paper, scissors, glue. I found this video which shows the perfect way to make envelopes without measurements and with just a few steps:

I think this technique is better for bigger envelopes and great for using magazine pages with pretty photographs, advertising brochures, patterned paper, or any other paper or design that you like. If you intend to use the envelope for sending a letter, it’s best to choose sturdier paper or glue two sheets of paper together before folding the envelope.

The photos below show a few envelopes I made with this technique, from magazine pages and brochure:

There’s a Greek free press  about wine called Grape which has great, thick paper and lovely photographs

 

After I make the envelopes I usually add washi tape to the sides for safety and decoration and when I want to use them I decorate them further. See below a few examples of decorated envelopes:

 

Finally, I love making small envelopes and put in gifts that I send to penpals. These are very easy to make and can be made with any type of paper. If you look online you can find templates and measurements for various envelope sizes and shapes (example). But starting out with paper, ruler and pencil, it’s not particularly difficult to design an envelope, sketching a square or rectangle and then the top, bottom and side flaps. It may require a little experimenting but once you get the hang of it it’s really easy. What I can advise is to take care that the length of the side flaps is a bit longer than half the length of the central rectangle.

One of my semi-successful efforts below, so you can get an idea.

This can be done with any kind of paper, I like using patterned paper and pages from books/magazines to make envelopes, see below a few examples: