Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Living More Artfully


In the process of tidying up my workspace this morning, I came across some old calendar pages I had saved because the art on them was so pretty. (Van Gogh and Monet's paintings. Perhaps the ballet one is Degas?) Anyway, I figured since I had them out, I would transform them into envelopes. It's pretty easy to do:


1. Deconstruct an actual envelope to use as your template.


2. Using a ball point pen or an embosser, trace around the opened envelope on the wrong side (date side) of the calendar paper. I don't worry about trying to get a certain part of the picture onto the envelope-I like it to be random-it's more interesting that way. My trick to creating the folds correctly is that after I trace around the open envelope, I fold all the flaps inward and then trace around it again.


3. Cut out on the outer traced line. Crease on the inner traced lines and reconstruct it. Glue using either glue stick or double sided tape.


4. To address them when I want to use them, I just stick a plain white label on the front and write the address on that.


See how easy that was?



This is the embosser tool I use. It's just like a ball point pen except it doesn't have any ink in it. Using this tool or a ballpoint pen works well on the glossy paper because it gives you nice clean fold lines. If you can't find an embossing tool, then just save an old ball point pen when the ink runs out-it works just the same.


I often buy art related calendars and I can't bear to throw them out when the year is over. This is a good way to give them a second life. You can also usually find all sorts of calendars on sale about 2 weeks into January. Often they are just 99c each!


If I get a cool arted up envelope in the mail, I save it. I open it carefully at one end and then re-use it as a pocket in a journal or altered book. If there is something interesting stamped on the outside, I will cut that out and glue it into my Moleskine journal, just for fun. I have a quirky habit of saving all postage stamps too-I just can't get enough of them and they are little artworks in themselves. As I often tell my students, "There is no garbage!"


That's this week's tip for living more artfully!

4 comments:

alex said...

Nice idea Lelainia. I also wanted to say congrats on Belle Amoire having published your lovely necklace. Oh, and I really love the look of this blog.

mormar said...

I like that idea. I have boxes of art calendars that I have saved. This will be a good project for the weekend. Thanks for the tip.

Jill said...

This is a great idea! I have stacks and stacks of calendars...can't bear to part with them!!! Thank You!

swooze said...

This is such a great idea. I have calendar pages I love to save too. May have to try this one some time.