Tutorial – What to do with a pile of fancy magazines?

How did I end up having so much magazines???

When I moved to my new place a year ago, the post office offered us free magazine subscriptions. Hooray! Free stuff!!! I was excited to open the first one and read it, I then just opened the second and left it on the coffee table shelf then the third one ended up unwrapped until today!

In the mean time I started collecting Coke caps to redeem rewards on mycokerewards.com and I ended up getting more magazine subscriptions!!! You’d think I would have learned! Not to mention that I also buy some at the kiosk once in a while.

My coffee table shelf was so crowded I couldn’t add anymore magazines so I went through them and picked up the pages that inspired me to make envelopes and cards.
Some will go to my Etsy shop, some will be kept to share with friends and family.

So go through you your pile of magazines and let’s start! You can also go through your posters, illustration books, children books, even your junk mail!

What do you need?
-Magazines
-An X-Acto knife or a pair of scissors
-An envelope template (an internet image search returns a lot of options to choose from)
-A fine point or ultra fine no bleed point sharpie
-A ruler and/or a square ruler.
-Glue
-Craft paper, card stock, scrapbooking supplies, stamps, you name it!
-Optional: Lick & Stick Envelope Glue 1.5 Oz. Remoistenable or scrapbook/photo mounting tape to allow for the flap to be sealed.

Note:
-I use 3 different size templates that I lay on the illustrations I preselected and use the one that covers the picture the best.

The Envelopes

For this tutorial I’ve selected a painting from the magazine Antique, one of my favorite source for making those fancy envelopes of mine.

1.Lay your template on the picture and outline with a pencil.

I personally prefer to cut paper with an X-Acto knife as it makes the edges perfectly straight but if you don’t have one, scissors work fine.

It should look like this

3.Fold the flaps.

It should look like this.

4. Line the inside. (Optional) You can line the whole envelope or just the flap, it’s up to you. Just note that lining the envelope makes a thicker material that would not rip easily. It can be a good idea if you consider mailing it.

First, make a template in the desired size. I copied the envelope template and cut it.

Glue your flap.

5. Glue the side flap and the verso of the envelope. You can add a strip of strip of Lick & Stick Envelope Glue 1.5 Oz. Remoistenable or scrapbook/photo mounting tape on the flap to allow for the envelope to be sealed.

Recto

Verso

You can make tons and tons of them!

The cards

Depending on your selection you can make one that opens like a check book or one that opens like a regular book or a single sheet one. Here are a few examples.

For this tutorial, I chose 3 pictures that I thought were matching the style of the envelope and decided to make a “tryptich” card. It is up to you and what you have to work with. I find it easier to make the card with preselected images rather than make the card and illustrate it afterward.

 

1. Make the card 1/8? smaller than your envelope all the way around. It is very important to do so or your card will not fit the envelope!!!

2 Outline your picture with colored paper or card stock.

3.Glue the pictures on the card and voilà!

 

Please come back and share the cards you made 😀