Handmade Envelopes + Pinterest Thursday

Making your own envelopes is a great way to add an extra special touch to a card or even a scrapbook. It's so easy, and you can use coordinating paper to match the rest of your project. First, for a pattern, you can take a regular envelope of whatever size you want and open up the flaps. Then trace the envelope pattern onto the blank side of the paper and cut.

Then, I use the edge of my paper cutter to make straight folds for the envelope flaps (because I'm a little OCD).

Next, fold the side flaps in and glue the bottom flap edges to the side flaps to close up the envelope.

Done! Easy as that. I love adding handmade envelopes to scrapbooks for an additional place to store pictures and other keepsakes.

Now on to the Pinterest part. I saw this cute care package on Pinterest a little while ago and thought it was perfect for sending to a few girls from our church's youth group who have gone off to college.

This is from Laura Kaesshaefer's post on making a care package to send overseas to her brother. So, I decided to do this using some handmade envelopes and note cards. Once I made five envelopes out of coordinating paper, I glued the top flap of each envelope to the back of another one in a chain.

I filled each envelope with a coordinating note and some candy and... 

Care package, done! I tied it shut with ribbon just like Laura's post shows. What a cute little package! I'm excited to make a few more and send them out! Thanks Laura, for the inspiration!

Check out more Pinterest projects at Life by the Book.