More on Letters

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage

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Let's Make Pretty Envelopes...

One of the things that makes our letters lovely is beautiful paper and stationary. Stationary includes envelopes. Lined envelopes are always elegant but have you priced pretty envelopes at the office supply stores recently? Ouch!!

Whenever I see pretty envelopes on sale I always stock up and then line them myself with pretty colored tissue paper or gift wrap. If the gift wrap is used and has some wrinkles just give it quick once over with a dry iron set on low. Voila. Just like new.

When I'm not too busy I make my own envelopes our of pretty paper. If the paper is heavily printed with a pattern you can glue on a coordinating plain square of paper for the address.

Lining envelopes is easy. Grab the envelope you're going to use. Slap it down on a piece of plain copy paper.  Trace around the sides and top.

Cut it out, making it just a bit narrower than the envelope, and cut an inch or so off the bottom.  Slip it in to the envelope to test for size.  If the top does not fit right underneath the pre-glued area, take it out and snip a bit more off the bottom until it does. 

Now use that pattern to cut out your lining paper.  I used turquoise blue tissue paper for a pink marbled envelope.  Slip it to the envelope and when it is fitted right under the glue area fold your envelope flap and crease the liner paper.  If you skip this step the world won't come to an end. I just think it makes the gluing easier.

Run a bit of glue stick right under the pre-glued area on the top only.  Do not glue any other place on that liner. It needs to able to move a bit.  So there you go!! So simple that if you have kids at home you can make them pre-line a bunch of envelpes for you.

But, but, but........you say.  What about the outside?  I love stickers and whenever I see them on sale I scarf them up.  Put some gorgeous stickers on the outside of the envelope like the ones I just found at the dollar store.

Or grab your pencil box. Don't have a pencil box?  Sneak into the kid's room and grab theirs...

Make a little flower.  This is supposed to be a tulip.  By art standards it's a pretty bad tulip.  By sweetness standards it's an A+

My friend Mary sent me this sweet poem.

"Elegy for the Personal Letter"
by Allison Joseph


I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and cross outs that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages--
can't much write now--thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at--
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far--
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.