Mrs. Sundae, Chicago/Lake Geneva, WI
Age and Occupation: 28, Knowledge Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Investment Advisor
Engagement Date: July 20, 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: February 5, 2008
Venue: The Abbey Resort
About Me: It’s hard to believe that by the time Mr. Sundae and I get married we will have been together for almost ten years. When we first met in college we split dollar pitchers and now we share the mortgage payments. Despite our love for the city we are looking forward to tying the knot in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Invitation Liners
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:47 pm by Mrs. Sundae
Despite my occasional feelings of burnout, I am still crazy enough to take on tasks like this. I just can’t help myself! A few weeks ago, I found this really great paper at JoAnn Fabrics and a few seconds later I found a green satin ribbon that matched it exactly. I wanted to line our invitation envelopes and use ribbon as a “belly band” for the invitations themselves, so I bought all of it on the spot. Which now means that now, I have the lovely tasks of making liners for every single one of our inner envelopes! The good news is, I cut out a template before the envelopes made their way to the calligrapher so that they can be cut and ready to go by the time they’re all returned to me. Its not nearly as hard as I suspected, but I documented the process for anyone else that might need it!
It’s sometimes easier to pull the envelope apart, but I tried to conserve my envelopes, so I measured one that was still intact. I used a regular manila envelope to create the template, and started by cutting it so that it was 1/8 of an inch shorter than the envelope on each side:
For the top portion, I cut the manila envelope so that it was about 1/4 of an inch from the top point of the envelope. Then I put the entire square into the envelope itself:
Then I put a ruler at the top of the point and made a (clearly not so straight) line onto the template so that I had a mark for the uppermost point:
I took a ruler and made a line from the crease of the envelope to the mark I had just made for the uppermost center point:
I made those lines on either side and then cut off the corners…and there’s my template! Honestly, making the template perfect took me the longest time. From here on out was pretty straightforward.
I put the template on my paper and traced away. If you use a corner of the paper you only have to make three quick lines:
I cut the liner out along the lines I had just made:
And inserted into the envelope!
Now I just needed to get a nice crease so that it all folded together nicely. So I folded the envelope flap down and used a bone folder along the edge to make a crease:
Then took a tape roller (these things save a ton of time) and put tape on each of the edges:
Pressed it into the envelope flap, and voila! Once the template is finished it takes just a few minutes to make the actual liner. I traced a bunch of them at once, and then cut about 25 of them in under a half an hour.
Now I can hardly wait to get our envelopes back from the calligrapher!
Are you lining your own envelopes? Anyone else planning on using the long weekend over the 4th to knock out some crazy wedding tasks? 
22 Responses to “Invitation Liners”
Do you know how thick the paper was that you used for the envelopes? I have some leftover black paper that would be great for this, if it’s not too thick. Thanks for the post, it def makes the idea of envelope liners less intimidating!
I lined the envelopes for the bridesmaids’ breakfast invitations, but that was hardly daunting…a total of 6 invitations!
Ooh, this looks like the kind of DIY project that I can actually handle!
I’m planning on tackling my invites!
I used the Martha Stewart method and tore apart one of my envelopes to make a template, and because of this my template got bruise, beaten, and shred to bits from all the cuts. Your way is sooo much better and saves an envelope. Brilliant!
Hydrangea - I just looked and the paper doesn’t give a weight, so I am not sure how to explain the thickness 
Its textured and was in the card stock section, so its definitely thicker than normal paper. It’s not as thick as our invitations though, and those were on lettra paper. Err…that was a useless explanation!
we were going to line the envelopes for the invites, but lucked into some awesome craft paper that had a lovely solid blue on one side and a silver floral over the blue on the other - automatic lining! we did take apart a similar envelope to start the template, but ended up making a fold out section and adding some embellishments. i definitely agree that it takes less time than you’d expect and that tape rollers ROCK.
i may use your method to line our thank you cards, though - it seems fast and fun - thanks for the detailed step-by-step!
This makes me so happy to see you doing this. I had the exact same idea, but thought it might not look as good as I hoped. But at Jo-Anne’s they had a 6 for .96$ deal that I couldn’t pass up and bought all the paper I needed to line them even if I decided not to it was a great steal. Thanks so much you have inspired me to go do them right now!
I too will be cutting out my envelope liners for the invitation and rsvp envelope. I am really behind the ball on my invitations so hopefully I can make up some time this weekend!
for the paper I just ended up using text weight paper. and I followed miss shortcake’s suggestion (in a previos board post) and just traced the envelope and cut a bit off the bottom and viola- perfect fit!
Ooh - yes! This will be a full-on Craft Warfare Weekend for me as well! I have invitations, table runners and some bridesmaids gifts to knock out.
Thanks for the tutorial!
I did this too, but it was even easier for me because I used square-flap envelopes. The perfectionist in me couldn’t just cut out a square, though, I had to taper the teeniest bit off of the sides because the flaps narrowed in a bit. Sigh. But many people commented on them (I had dark purple envelopes and a lighter purple damask liner), so it was worth it.
As for weight, I wouldn’t do anything thicker than normal printer type paper or scrapbook paper. Anything of a cover/cardstock weight will make things rather thick and less wieldy (is that word?)
Thank you for posting this. I was about to stubbornly dish out the $8 for the paper source template!
I did the same steps you did for lining my envelope. I even printed love poems (on the liner) to fit and stop just over the fold. I did one mistake that apparently you didn’t forsee. I taped the lining then folded the crease. Luckily I had extra envelopes.
Yes we used origami paper as our liner. It turned out really cool..
I did the same exact thing! I traced my ‘template’ paper onto cardboard, though, and then traced all the liners out at once, so it was quick to run them thru the paper cutter. The bone folder and tape roller made all the difference, though! My paper was a fairly thick, almost cardstock weight.
Wish I’d had your tutorial ahead of our own invites! While I followed many of the same steps, I did it a bit haphazardly… They turned out SO lopsided! Hard to go wrong with pretty paper, though.
Is that Bazzil Bling?
You RULE!!! I was thinking of doing the liners myself because I found some cool funky orange and white patterned paper to use. But then I thought, naw it’ll probably be to complicated. But then you go ahead and post this and make me go- hey! i could do that! so I’m going to!
Rock on!
Quick question. Where did you order your envelopes from? I am having a hard time finding the baronial envelopes that are completely opaque. I also want a pointed flap, and not the euro style. Thanks so much!
Carly - I ordered the envelopes directly from the Crane & Co website. The envelopes that I lined were the ungummed inners, which are about $25 for 100. Here is the link to the ones we used:
http://www.crane.com/prdSell.aspx?Name=22102_PearlWhiteLetterA7PointedFlapEnvelopes
thanks!
I have to say I know this is an older post, but I give you props sister I almost braved this new world and then I just paid someone to print onto the envelope. I couldn’t commit. I feel the same way, sometimes the creative juices take over and you are worse off for your great ideas hope you are having a great wedding soon! (funny enough I did fuschia and damask!)
