Calendar To Envelopes

Two calendars from 2012

There’s been more than one tutorial I’ve seen showing the recycling of old calendars into envelopes. Most times the calendars I buy are from the Dollar Store printed on lightweight thin paper. Since I also recycle office paper, I used that to line the envelopes to give them some stability. Simply Rebekah has a great tutorial. I used many of her directions.

And, before I forget let me say that I took both sizes of envelopes to the post office to make sure they were OK to use for snail mail. I suppose I should have done it before finishing them all but had they not approved I would have used them as gift envelopes.

Gather the crew

Materials: old calendars, used office paper for lining envelopes, paper cutter, mailing labels, scissors, glue stick, envelope template.


At the top you can see the envelope I steamed open. To the left is the cut calendar page. To the right is the office paper being recycled for the lining.

I steamed open a purchased 3 5/8 x 6 ½ in envelope to use as a template. I laid it on the calendar page of choice and traced around it with a marker.

The envelope cut and the side that will be showing

After cutting it out I measured from top of the closing flap to the bottom flap to get measurements for the lining. I wasn’t trying to be exact with this only approximate.

After cutting out the lining I placed glue stick over the entire back of the printed side and stuck it onto the envelope. It’s important to get the glue on the edges , otherwise the lining will separate from the envelope.

After allowing all to dry, I trimmed off any bits of white lining peeking out.



You can see on the left where I've placed a line of glue that I will spread to cover the entire side flap.
The right flap has already been glued.

Now the folding begins. Using my template and a ruler I precreased the sides where I would be gluing the envelope. I preferred to use white glue for this part make sure all parts of the flap had glue so that it wouldn’t lift up while enroute to someone.
Seeing an address on a graphic envelope would be near impossible so I used self stick address labels.

2 x 4 inch labels were used in the ‘TO’ section and 1 x 2 5/8 inch labels were used in the ‘FROM’ section.

They looked stark so I decided to give it some color by drawing around the labels.

I've really got to learn to operate a camera. These came out really pretty but who can tell with all of this frost?

As a second thought I cut some of the 1 x 2 5/8 into threes and placed a squared in the POSTAGE area. (I'd already taken the picture before I put the postage square on)

ALMOST

SQUARE

 ENVELOPES

The second set of envelopes were closer to a square measuring 5 x 5 ½ inches. I suppose these would be more suited for cards.

This might be a good way to recycle greeting cards discarding the second page, saving the cover and writing on the back of the cover.

I didn’t use a template for these nor did I line them. There was quite a bit of folding it into itself making it sturdy without a lining. And this was also the Dollar Store calendar which had larger pages. I probably should have used a template but I was in the zone and didn’t want to stop.



On these you can see where I put the postage square. Up top you can see where I made one of them business
size. I quickly let go of that notion.



By folding the sheet into a triangle (I should have used Simply Rebekah's method) it caused the picture to become somewhat distorted. I don’t have photos of my progress with these, just the finished work. I used transparent tape at the bottom of the envelope as well as glue stick.

This calendar page started out as a picture of mountains peaks and snow. It's really hard
to tell that from the picture. I will perfect my methods.

It was my intention to make decorative self stick labels on the computer for the 'TO' and 'FROM'sections. I couldn’t quite get it the way I wanted it so I did my own sketches with ink pen , Sharpie markers and colored pencils.

I'd seen a recipe for envelope glue but I have opted not to use it. In order to seal them I'll be using glue stick and/or doublesided stick tape. 

I’ll be using these as my own personal stationery.

THAT'S IT***