How to Make Envelopes

Would you like to know how to make envelopes for your handmade greeting cards? Here's a way!

"Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope
~Shana Alexander"

Knowing how to make envelopes for your handmade greeting cards is a definite advantage, especially when we card makers often make odd sized cards. I have spent a lot of time hunting for just the right sized ones in the shops, only to come home disappointed or with a compromise. Not any more! Now I can make any sized envelope for my cards that I wish. You could use a template, but sometimes even templates are not the right size, so here's a way to customise your work to suit your card!

Today I made a square card. It is 15cm (about 6") square. Naturally I had no ready made envelope in stock, so I got to work making my own.

First I took an A4 sized sheet of printer paper (a normal sized sheet of printer paper) and placed it on my desk. Then I placed the card itself on the paper and folded up the bottom towards the middle, and folding the top down towards the middle too. My aim was to have the top flap overlap the bottom one by about 2cms (1"). In this case, my card was too big for me to do that. Some cards are wider one way than they are the other, so you can often turn them another way to overlap the paper, but in this case with a square card, that was not going to be possible.

As my paper was too short as it was, there was no problem. I simply made a border to 'stretch' my paper! I cut a piece of paper the right length to allow the overlap I wanted, then decorated it with a scallop punch and some stamps. Then I adhered it to the edge of the top fold with double-sided tape.

After I made my extension, I put the card back in the middle of the paper and opened it out. Then I folded the sides towards the centre to enclose the card just right (leave a little bit of room for the card to slide in and out easily).

Then I opened out the whole page again and drew in the flaps by following the fold lines and gently rounding the corners. It's a simple matter to cut the extra bits out then.

Next, add some double sided tape to the bottom flaps so that when you fold them up, they will adhere to the folded in sides of the envelope

Almost done! Either continue decorating the inside of the envelope if you wish, or leave it as it is and leave the flap without adhesive, or add in some double sided tape to the top flap so your envelope can be sealed. I decided to add a little scalloped edge to the inside of the top flap. (See the top picture)

If you have never made these before, I hope you now know how to make envelopes. You can see how you could customise your envelope to any sized card with this tutorial to help you, I hope!

Top of page