My obsession with making envelopes from old magazine and calendar pages

I’ve always had a love affair with paper, especially making envelopes from old magazine and calendar pages… even wallpaper scraps. And, I actually use them to mail letters! In college, I would take junk mail envelopes, open them up and use them for templates. Every envelope was different; I didn’t care if the picture was tilted, or if there was text. The envelopes were that much cooler.

Recycling / upcycling my Crate and Barrel and Anthropolgie catalogs into mini-envelopes

Since it’s Chinese New Year’s Eve, I pulled out red envelopes for the kids. I was inspired to make a few mini envelopes… from some favorite catalog mailers. (Crate&Barrel and Anthropologie, I love your layouts.)

Here, I’ve carefully opened up my red envelope to figure out the shape and to make a template on a blank piece of paper.

I also put together a Mini / Red Envelope template that can be downloaded here. Just print on cardstock, cut, and follow directions.

Sometimes you get cute envelopes from unexpected pages. It’s all template positioning  – trial and error.

Before I cut out my envelope shapes, I used a silver marker to go around my template. It made a nice edge on the finished envelope. I also tried a colored permanent marker.

Like I said, I thought I would make a few envelopes, but I got carried away. (Yes, a die-cut machine would probably be more efficient but where’s the fun in that?) Guess I better figure out who to send these to.

Finished size is approximately 4 inches x 2-3/4 inches.

I wonder what else I could cut up to make envelopes? *grin*