Eco Envelope tutorial

Find some magazines, catalogs, junk mail and you can make some handmade envelopes.

My son was applying to college this spring and we had a lot of college catalogs in the

    mail. They had thick pages and a lot of good color too. So this sample is  from one of the  catalogs where I tore out some nice pages for making envelopes. 

Step 1. Tear your sheet of paper out of the publication. Place it horizontally in front of you
and fold a little flap down at least a half an inch. You can make the flap as thick as you want.

       
           

Make a nice crease with your fingers or a use a bone folder.

Step 2. Flip the sheet of paper over and fold the right hand side of the paper to a
little less then the middle of the paper. You are folding at a slight angle.

Step 3. Take the left side of the paper and fold at an angle and meet the paper
on the other side as shown in photo.

Step 4  Flip the paper over to the other side
 and then turn your envelope so the folded flap is next to your right hand.
 Now tuck the left
hand side of the envelope into the right hand side of the envelope. 

Step 5 and final step. Push down and crease both edges of envelopes and flatten it.

These two samples show the "band" on the envelope slanted when you angle the paper as shown in the tutorial. The left envelope shows what happens when you just fold the paper with no angle. 

Here are samples of the envelopes made with old calendars, atlas pages, book pages, catalogs and a magazine. You can put
your message inside or write on the blank side if there is one.  This make a nice little package  for a gift card or
small gift for someone. Thanks to photographer/mail artist friend Pamela Gerard for the photographs for this blog post.
Please check out Pamela's blog post where she has her tutorial for an origami wallet we both love to make. www.cappuccinoandartjournal.blogspot.com