Confessions of a Feminist Bride: October 2008

Photo courtesy of marthastewart.com

Sorry, loyal readers, that I haven't been terribly up on posting as of late. I've been suffering through this bout of shingles, and have been super doped up on pain meds and pretty sleepy. But, luckily, the shingles seem to be almost disappeared and I've decided it's time to rejoin the productive members of society. So yesterday I decided to buckle down and work on one of our DIY projects - envelope liners for our Save-the-Date cards.

It's not that we NEED envelope liners, but if you don't have a job yet because of the crappy economic climate, and you're spending your days rearranging furniture, making calls on behalf of a presidential campaign (go Obama!), and doing wedding planning (i.e. playing on The Knot), envelope liners start to almost look like fun.

So....if you find yourself as bored as I have been lately, here are some instructions for some handy dandy envelope liners to spruce up your boring envelopes.

What you"ll need:

Paper
I went with wrapping paper from a neighborhood store in a black and white almost-but-not-quite damask print. Each role was 5' x 30" and only cost me $3.99 (yeah, even wrapping paper is expensive in NYC ;)). I ended up using a little over two rolls to make 85 liners.

A cutting surface
I pulled out my handy dandy rotary cutting mat from the DIY pocketfold project

A cutting tool
Again, I pulled out the rotary trimmer from the pocketfold project, but a paper cutter or even a pair of scissors would also work - though I believe the process would be much slower)

Metal ruler
Pretty self explanatory

Adhesive
I used Elmer's washable glue stick (it's what FI came back from the store with ;)). You could also use glue dots or double-sided tape, but this actually seemed to be the easiest and most cost-effective way to do it.

A bone folder
Indespensible. If you don't have one, go buy one. You'll use it in sooooo many projects.

Oh...and don't forget your envelopes. ;)

Step 1

The first thing you'll need to do is measure your envelope. The width of your liner will need to be the width of your envelope MINUS 1/4 inch - ours ended up being 8 3/4" (for a vista print envelope that matched the oversized postcards).

The height of the liner can be a bit more tricky. Our envelopes were flatter (not pointy) flaps (hurray for easy!) so I just measured from the bottom of the envelope to right beneath the gum on the flap to get the height of our liners - 6 7/8".

Step 2

Cut your paper. I realized that I could fit three liners in the width of the paper, so I simply cut the roll into 6 7/8" strips. I then cut each of these strips into 8 3/4" chunks. I was able to get 3 liners per strip; 24 liners per roll.

Once each liner was cut, I needed to cut the corners for the flap. Getting the right angle was a bit tricky, but here's what I did. To get the angle, I measured the distance from the edge of the flap (where the flap meets the body) to where the glue strip ended. See picture.

And this is where having a cutting surface with a grid and edge rulers comes in INCREDIBLY useful. I was able to simply line the top edge of the liner up with the edge of the board (conveniently next to a ruler) and the side edge of the liner with a grid square. I was then able to place my metal ruler on the liner at the corner of the grid square at the appropriate height (in this case, 1"), and on the corresponding measure on the ruler at the enge of the mat (in this case 3/8" away from the edge of the liner). Then I was able to simply cut along the ruler to get instant perfect angle. I know it sounds incredibly complicated, but one's you do one or two, you'll fly through the rest of them. (Enlarge the pic and you'll be better able to see what I mean).

Step 3

Insert liner into envelope, print side up, trying to make sure the liner is centered in the envelope.

Step 4

Fold down the flap of the envelope, and use your bone folder to make a light crease. Don't press to hard at this step, or your likely to have a double line when you do the next folding after the glue.

Here's FI FINALLY helping. He wouldn't agree to do the glue, but he finally stopped grumbling enough about me asking him to stop playing Final Fantasy to do Step 4 for me.

Step 5

Life the flap of your envelope, but leave the liner folded down.

Step 6

Insert a scrap piece of paper between the liner and the bottom of the envelope, then use your adhesive to lightly coat the back of the liner.

Step 7

(Doing it this way definitely helped to make sure that the liner laid flat with no wrinkles). Push the liner onto the flap, and lightly tap it down. THEN fold over the flap and liner, and use your bone folder to smooth it out and make sure the liner adheres to the flap. This time you can press harder, because you want a smooth, sharp crease.