Recycle Paper to Make Your Own Beautiful Envelopes

Hello friends,

While I am clearly an appreciator of art, in my own endeavors I have always been drawn more to the crafts part of arts and crafts.  There's something about functionality that really appeals to me.  I'm a big believer that when we refer to "the creative process" we're really talking about creative problem solving.

Art is a response to a challenge: How do I express this concept that I want to convey using a particular medium?  Creating beautiful items that also have utility, to me, magnifies the opportunity to address problems: How do I express this concept that I want to convey while simultaneously meeting a practical challenge?  How do I make something beautiful and also useful?  The magnification goes even further if you add a third layer of challenge: How do I make this thing I'm doing eco-friendly? How can I be resourceful?  How do I do it cheaply?

I'm also a big fan of elegant solutions, and there are few solutions as simple and elegant as repurposing paper to make beautiful envelopes.  Magazine pages, images from last year's calendar, torn up wrapping paper, old text books that have lost their resale value; these things can all be reused to make a beautiful envelope.  That envelope can then be used to add extra flare to a greeting card, place card, or calling card but why stop there?  Envelopes are essentially just containers for flat things.  Glue that baby into the inside cover of your travel journal and use it to hold little trinkets like coins, scribbled-on cocktail napkins, ticket stubs and bottle caps.  Or use it to hold your bookmark. Use them at the office to organize all those post-it notes lying around everywhere.  Envelopes really do offer unlimited utility.

Yes, but can envelope-making truly be artistic, you may ask?  Yes!  It's not just choosing the paper that adds aesthetic creativity to this project.  It's the shape of the envelope, and what part of the paper you use, and there's even an aspect of composition. You'll see how this works a lot more once you get into the making process.




Step one is to obtain a template.  I use pre-made stencils I purchased from Paper Source.  But you could easily make your own using scrap cardboard.  Consider what you plan to use your envelope for and whether you need it to be a standard size.  All you really need for a functional envelope, though, is a flat plane to make up one side and then four flaps that are large and long enough to overlap one another when folded over.

You can purchase envelope glue that you can add to the top flap in order to make it lick-and-stickable like a machine-made envelope, but I don't find that it works very well, so I like to tuck the top flap inside the envelope instead to close it.  This means that if you make a template and decide to use this method, you want your top flap to be extra long so it can be tucked in.  You can also develop unique methods of closure, like attaching bits of yarn to tie a bow (and you can always just tape it shut or glue it when you're ready to give it away).

Now it's time to trace your stencil onto whatever paper you have selected.  For these examples I'm using several pages from a newsletter sent out by an art museum I frequent.

Start by Tracing Around Your stencil

Pay attention to how you place your stencil.  Try to work around unsightly areas like margins, undesired text, or areas with blank space unless you want a blank envelope.  But more than that, think about what parts of the image you want to capture.  Do you want your envelope to just feature abstract shapes and colors, or do you want to make sure to capture recognizable elements from the image?  I like to outline in pencil, but I've outlined here in pen to make it darker and easier to see.

Make sure to avoid unsightly elements like unwanted text, and also take margins into consideration

Some of the pages I've used feature lithographs by famed artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and I definitely wanted to get the faces of the figures he depicted.

Consider what parts of the image you care about capturing

 You also want to think about where on the envelope different elements will appear.  I try to center things like faces or other elements that I really like in the middle part of the template because that central portion of the template will form the seamless front panel of the envelope.  Sometimes, though, you don't have a choice because you have to fit the template to the page.

Consider where on the envelope each part of the image will end up - the front of the envelope,
the back flaps or the top flap?  What part of the image will end up being overlapped?

On this piece featuring more abstract work I avoided the eyeball, which I find a little bit disturbing, and focused the envelopes over areas that were about medium busy compared to parts of the composition with more or less going on.  Since the envelopes I'm making here are mini envelopes, too much or too little going on could impact the overall visual appeal by either overwhelming the envelope or being too boring.

Consider the proportions of the envelope you're making and
what part of the paper you're using will  fill the space best

Are you beginning to see how this is an artistic process?  Selection and placement choices reflect thoughtful aesthetic decision-making.

Next, you get to cut, fold and glue.  This does not have to be an exact science since a lot of  your edges are going to be hidden where the paper overlaps.  You can decide which side you want to fold under and which side will have the visible edge.

The paper cut-out that will eventually become an envelope once folded and glued

It's good to have nice, crisp folds, so I like to press the center of my crease down with the pad of my finger and then fold outwards from the center on either side using the tip of my finger with lots of pressure, or sometimes with the edge of my fingernail.

Make a nice crisp fold pressing from the center out

Any strong paper glue will do.  I'm a particular fan of PVA, which is a bookbinding glue specifically designed for adhering paper to paper in a secure, tight bond.  Use thin, straight lines close but not too close to the edge of the flap (maybe an eight of an inch away).  You don't need to use too much glue because it shouldn't ooze out.  In fact, too much glue will keep the paper from adhering because it will be too wet and the flaps will pop open.  Since a little bit of oozing will probably be inevitable, make sure that whatever glue you use dries clear and matte on your paper, which PVA does.

It only takes a very thin line of glue near the edge of your flap

Et voila, perfect, beautiful envelopes!