The other day Roben-Marie Smith posted a great tutorial on her blog. It's silly simple and just the right thing to while away a rainy afternoon. The beauty of this project is that you can just use whatever you have on hand. I didn't have an old calendar kicking around, so I used some pages from an old Stampington magazine. At the very end, I also used some old wrecked rub-ons. (The letters and numbers were half gone, so they're no good for my usual projects, but perfect for this!)
It was really relaxing just slapping things down with a glue stick while listening to a new mixed CD my pal Tina sent me. I worked on 8 cards, assembly line style-I'd glue down one layer on each and then go back and add the second one on each and so on. The whole point of doing them that way was to avoid trying to make them too perfect. I just wanted to create without really thinking about it. It was so meditative that lost all track of time.
Roben-Marie also altered some store bought envies, using more scraps. You could either do that or do like I do and make envelopes from magazine pages.
If you want to make some of those here's how:
-Take an envelope in the size you want to make (be sure it's no bigger than the magazine page) and carefully deconstruct it to use as a template.
-Lay your envelope template on top of your page folded side up. Splay the envelope open and trace around it with a ball point pen.
-Fold all the flaps inward and trace around it again. (The ball point works wonderfully on shiny magazine or calendar pages to score the folds.)
-Cut out your envelope on the outer lines. Fold on the inner lines. Use a bone folder to make a good sharp crease.
-Use 1/4 inch wide double sided tape to glue the bottom folds to form the pocket part of the envelope.
-Put a length of double sided tape across the inside of the flap, but do not remove the paper from the tape until you are ready to seal it for mailing.
-Add a return address label to the front top right corner.
-Add an address label on the front. I like to use a "hello my name is" label from the dollar store.
I predict there are going to be some good mail days ahead! If you make cards or envies using either of these ideas, I'd love to see them! Shoot me an email or post here to let me know.
