Envelope-Making 101: Cutting Out

The template is now finished and only needs to be cut out.


All ready for tracing!



Trace it onto a sheet of paper. If the template is too long to fit straight up and down, don't be afraid to turn it to a diagonal.



Using the paper with the traced template shape as the top, staple 5 or 6 sheets of paper around the envelope shape. This will hold the paper together so you can cut out 5 or 6 envelopes at a time.


All cut out!

Envelope-Making 101: Glue, Fold and Finished

Fold the sides in, being diligent to fold exactly from corner to corner. Being exact is what will make your envelopes crisp and even and not lopsided-looking.


Fold the bottom the same way - corner to corner.


All folded and ready for gluing!



Take a look at where the sides and bottom overlap - glue goes in the overlap area. If you get glue outside that overlap area, you'll glue flaps shut or glue two envelopes together when they're stacked. I've shaded to show where the overlap areas are. Glue ONLY goes within those shaded areas.



Within that shaded area, you'll lay a line of glue close enough to the edge to make the edges tight, but not so close that glue squeezes out into areas you don't want it. I've drawn a squiggly black line to show where to set the bead-line of glue.



Use as thin a bead of glue as you can. It doesn't take much glue to hold paper flaps together, and too much wet glue will squeeze out where you don't it and warp the paper. That doesn't look nice.


All glued!


Now it's time to fold down the top flaps.



The five-dollar-bill fits inside very nicely.



I secured the top flap down with a dot of glue.

Don't forget to close your bottle of glue! Glue evaporates pretty quickly, and thickened glue is harder to work with when you're trying to get a very thin bead for envelope flaps.

These pretty envelopes with triangular flaps work well for smaller envelopes where you have space to spread it out on an 8 1/2x11" paper, but larger envelopes sometimes require squared flaps to make them fit. To see if something will fit in an envelope made from an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper, lay it on the paper and wrap the paper around it. You have to be able to get the paper all the way around it with a little left over to glue. Sometimes it works by turning to a diagonal, sometimes it works by using narrow rectangular flaps. (I'll show how to make a rectangular flapped envelope another time.)

Of course, you're not limited to 8 1/2x11" paper. I've used gift wrap, grocery bags, manila folders, light cardboard from packaging, poster board, and pretty bags from nicer department stores.

A Month of Grace

Grace is savage and must be savage in order to be perfect.
Charles A. Stoddard

Make Your Own Composition Book

These are the materials you'll need: large cover stock, legal paper, a stiff piece cardboard cut to the exact size of the book for trimming, a needle, heavy-duty craft thread, a thumbtack to punch holes, a template and pencil (or pen) to make a nice design on the front, and a pair of scissors.


Print 12 sheets of lined paper, both sides, on the legal paper. I created a Word document for this task.


Lay out the printed sheets of legal-sized paper.


Fold them in half.


Fold a sheet of large cover stock paper for the cover.


Put the paper inside the cover.


If your cover is way bigger than the paper, it can be trimmed (but not too close; just a rough cut!) so the clips go on.


Clip the cover to the pages so they'll stay still during sewing. I could use more clips for this, but all I have are two.


Punch holes about every inch. It's hard to get a needle through 12 sheets of paper and a cover. This step makes it easier for sewing.

Blogger wouldn't let me upload any more photos, so I'll put the rest on its own post, here.

And you can see ours in use here.

Make Your Own Composition Notebook Part II

Sew the binding, pushing the needle through the holes punched with the thumbtack.


Tie off the thread and clip the ends.


Fit the stiff cardboard against the binding. This will be a template for trimming the pages. I labelled my cardboard so I wouldn't think it was trash and throw it away.


Clip the cardboard into place.


Trim around the cardboard so all the pages and cover are even.


Repeat on the other side, clipping the cardboard and trimming the pages.


I like to add something on the cover for my kids to write their name and date. I use a pencil in case they have a design idea of their own and don't want to use mine.


The notebook is done!


I put it under something heavy to press the binding closed.



I'm not really a very crafty/design/artsy person, but I like making practical things with paper. My specialty is making envelopes. I can make them any size, and they look like they came out of a factory.

Boy, do my hands look old!!

Election Day

I took Miss M to the polls, and left the boys home to get started on school. Miss M kept asking me, "Is there water there? Are we going to get in?" I think she thought "vote" meant "boat." And, on my way out the door, one of the boys said, "Bye! Go change the world!"

Update on our Interactive Notebooks

We started them this morning. I intended for the boys to mostly write brief outlines of most of their books, but they insist that the process won't be any good unless they write it all. They don't want to forget anything. So school took a LOT longer. Actually, it didn't get finished today.

I suggested to J, who hasn't ever done much writing, that he dictate and let me write some of it (about half) for him. He said no, he wants to do it himself. "I really want to improve my spelling, and this will help me."

"But you'll be spending an hour more on school every day! It's not easy for you to keep up now; it'll be impossible if you're going to spend so much time writing."

"That's okay, I'd rather end up having a couple of my school books carried over to read over the summer, and get better at spelling."

I guess Charlotte Mason was right, kids really do want to know. I remember using every excuse I could to avoid schoolwork when I was younger.

A Month of Grace

Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes.
Martin Luther

Not a Baby Anymore

Miss M is officially not a baby anymore - she turned three last week. On the day we had set aside to celebrate, she woke up sick and I feared we'd have to postpone her special day. But, by late afternoon, she was much better. Daddy had the day off and wouldn't have time off for another week, so we went ahead with our plans. Because she'd been sick, I didn't make her cake, but we rushed out and bought one.

Lately, she's been obsessed with my vaccuum cleaner, so she got her own for her birthday. She loves it! She also got to pick a special birthday video to watch. She picked Dumbo. The interesting thing was, the boys seemed to enjoy it this time. It's been a long time since we saw it, and now they're old enough to get the humor in it that they missed when they were little. So it was fun for the whole family.

Interactive Notebooking

This weekend, I saw some compostion notebooks from a student of Charlotte Mason's schools. The student had used the notebook for written narrations and compositions, I think. What was interesting is that the teacher had written in her own comments in the margins. In some cases, the student had left notes or questions for the teacher, and the teacher's responses were written in underneath. It made a nice interactive dialog between the teacher and student.

I'm going to try the same thing with my students (although two are new at writing!) These composition notebooks were 80 years old and a different size than the ones I've always seen - smaller, with less pages. Loving small books as I do, I had to have some like those. I've looked online, and none are to be had. So I made some. Legal-sized paper (cream-colored, for easier readability, 12 sheets printed front and back) and large card stock was all I needed. I printed lines on the paper on the computer/printer, larger than college ruled, but smaller than wide ruled. I sewed the pages into a card-stock cover, and viola! Our own 42-page lined notebook in a compact size. I would have preferred a colored cover, but large card stock only came in white. And this way, the kids can draw on them and personalize them. I priced these at 53 cents each, not counting the time I spent printing, folding, sewing and trimming. It's work I enjoy - although I'm nowhere as proficient as Javamom, who binds her own hardcover books.

The boys are going to start using their books tomorrow.