When You Have a Gift to Give That’s Flat, Make A Gift Envelope
When you want to gift someone something flat, like a voucher or gift card or some money, it is nice to still wrap it, so to speak. So we have made gift bags in the past, here we are going to make a gift envelope.
So what is a gift envelope? Well I think of it like a fancy envelope you can actually open up. So if you have a number of flat treasures and gifts, this is an ideal solution to make it fancy. And actually reusable, if that is important to you.
A who doesn't love a cute friendly doggie? So we will make a doggie gift envelope here, but of course, you can swap out the doggie motif for anything, flowers for example.
What We Need to Make a Gift Envelope
- Basic paper working tools
- Paper punch, Scottie dog 2.5cms or 1inch
- Paper punch, circle punch, 2.5cms or 1inch
- Black paper, 5 x 7.5cm or 2 x 3 inches
- Red card, 30cms square or 11 and three quarters inches square
- Black split pins
- Thin string, 45cms or 18inches
- Green checked paper, 30cms square or 11 and three quarters inches square
- Cream notepaper, A4, 4 sheets
Basic Envelope Template
See above the general guide for the template to make a gift envelope. Really this again is more of a guide. You can see it is very simple. And it is smarter to make your gift envelope fit your specific gift you want to give. So just use the above template as a guide.
Basically get the red card and layout on top the flat item or items you want to gift. Now we want to make our gift envelope slightly bigger than our contents. If you make it the same size, and you put a few items in it, it make look too bulgy and not too neat.
So just add an extra border around your gift. Then make rectangle number 1 from the template, that size.
Then we just need some wide tabs on the side. Again, if you have a lot of things in your gift envelope, just make those tabs wider.
Then we just need the top and bottom flaps. These just need to be slightly shorter than the main rectangle number 1. So when you fold over the top and bottom flaps, the top flap goes slightly more than halfway. So we can use our ties to keep it closed.
How To Make A Basic Envelope
Step One
So basically don't worry too much about the template. Get the first rectangle the right size and eyeball the flaps.
If you have many gift envelopes to make. You can make a template out of cardboard, like a cereal box. Then just trace around the template over and over.
Cut your template from the red cardboard. Score along the edges using a scoring tool or similar. This will give you a very neat fold.
Next, cut a rectangle of green checked paper to fit the central rectangle shape.
Use double-sided tape or stick glue to attach the green checked paper to the red card base.
Decorate Your Homemade Envelope
Step Two
Cut another strip of the green paper 3cms wide or 1 and one quarter inches wide and long enough to go along the front and wrap just over the edge. Use double-sided tape or glue this strip in place.
Cut another green paper strip the same as before, but just wide enough for your envelope. Stick this on the backside of the first strip your stuck down. This is to neaten up the back of the flap where you folded over the edges.
Fixing A Clasp To Your Homemade Envelope
Step Three
Using the circle punch, cut two circle discs from the leftover red card. These will be the details of the clasp. If you are very careful, you could cut these discs with some scissors.
Make a hole in the centre of each red circle with a needle tool or similar. Pierce a hole in each flap of the gift envelope. You can just eyeball where these holes go, but use the below image to see a rough placement.
Insert the split pin through a red circle and through the hole in the gift envelope flap. Spread the split pin legs to hold in place. Repeat for the other flap.
Wrap the thin string around the circles to test the closure.
Final Assembly Of A Papercraft Envelope
Step Four
Finally, we add the doggie details. Punch dog shapes from the black card. Glue the doggie details to the outside of the envelope. Actually you can stick them where ever you like.
I added a little green collar to the bottom right doggie.
And that's it! One super playful, happy doggie gift envelope.
Additional Envelope Idea
If you want to make a stationary set as a gift, just add some matching motifs to some nice notepaper and add it to the envelope.
