Weddingbee Blog

Like so many other bees, I have jumped on the bandwagon and decided to line our invitation envelopes. I love the look of lined envelopes whenever I get something fancy shmancy in the mail, and everyone assured me it was a really easy project. Of course, as Spaniel mentioned, it will also take me approximately a bajillion hours. But it’s totally worth it. Totally. Right?

Although I haven’t finished all of the envelopes (OK fine, I haven’t actually adhered the liners to any envelopes yet), I have had enough of staring at pencil lines and slicing small pieces off my plastic ruler with an X-Acto knife for the time being, and thus instead of finishing them, am going to write about them!

(Envelopes and cardstock template-in-the-making)

I made the template the quickest way I could:

I traced the envelope outline onto the cardstock, then cut 1/8 of an inch off of each side (so the liner can slide in more easily), and 3/4 of an inch off the bottom so that the whole thing is staggered below the glue line. Voila! Template.

(Hmm… can you see the lines? They’re there, I swear)

I traced 10 liner outlines onto the back of one sheet of paper with complete disregard for advance planning (very unlike me), and luckily since our paper pattern is non-directional it doesn’t matter if the points are in different orientations. I tried a couple different ways of placing the liners on the sheet, but could only ever get 10 liners/page. Which by the way, leaves me 10 liners short! Good planning, Guinea Pig. Speaking of short, I might just make some of them shorter than the full length of the envelope, so I can eek out a few more (as Mrs. Sprinkle suggested, only going just past the opening in the envelope)… does anyone notice that sort of thing, anyway?

I bought the paper on sale at Paper Source, and it’s lovely! It took me forever to find a paper I liked, and I almost gave up on the idea until I stumbled upon this:

(metallic-ish flowers on a white background)

The flowers are shimmery under the light, and the theme goes well with our invitations. It’s also a text weight, which makes it easy to fold and not too stiff to be a liner. Here it is actually in an envelope - I love the contrast of the light liner with the blue envelope!

(By the way Mr. GP,  can I borrow your X-Acto knife? Better to ask late than never, right?)

Pretty soon I’m going to have to start addressing these suckers, so I’m glad to be getting this part of the project out of the way. Although perhaps to justify having stopped short of fully completing this project and gluing in the liners, if I’m going to print calligraphy and trace over it (a la Mrs. Labrador - in fact I just realized she used the very same liner paper!), it might be better to put the envelopes through the printer before they’re lined. So, yeah! That’s why I haven’t glued them in yet. I was thinking ahead.

(these helped me practice my X-Acto skills so I can be like Cola someday)

Overall it wasn’t too bad cutting them out (although I’m not done with that either!). I imagine if I had better skills with an X-Acto it would be faster. I couldn’t get the edges as smooth as I wanted with scissors, so I decided it was worth the extra effort to wield the knife.

Did you line your own envelopes? Do you actually notice envelope liners?!