I needed some favors for our table, and as it is seemingly family tradition to do everything at the last minute, always, I found myself scrambling around for something last night. I knew we had some Rooibos tea (popular in South Africa) in our pantry, and I had some extra South African coins from the awesome, big wooden box of world coins that Alyssa and I bought at the Boeremark before we left. I dug out my scraps of old National Geographic map from the journal project, and I was ready to start creating something!
Something like this was what I had in mind...
A tiny map envelope, just big enough for a bag of tea, incorporating a South African coin. Mom came up with the idea to label it, which was probably a good thing so people knew what was inside. =)
I had to make a lot of fold lines to get my end product just right, so I decided to make a template on plain paper and then just trace around that onto the map.
Start with a perfectly square piece of paper - I think mine was approximately 4 1/4" for the envelopes (the picture below is of a slightly larger square - I shot photos for this part of the tutorial separately).
Fold in half.
Fold in half the other wan, so you have a + crease in the middle, like this:
Now make pencil marks 1/4" on either side of each crease.
It should look like this (sorry, it's kind of hard to see, but hopefully you get the idea).
Now draw a lines between the dots, like this:
It should look like this, having tiny, 90 degree triangles on each corner of the inside square.
Snip out the triangles.
Now you're ready to trace onto your paper of choice! After making the map envelopes, I decided to make some from an old storybook I'd upcycled during the journal project.
You can hold several pieces of paper together and cut if you're making a lot of envelopes. Just be careful to keep the text straight (if you want it to be).
Fold one side...
...then the other...
...then fold up the bottom.
Glue the sides together.
Glue the bottom to the sides (being careful not to get any glue inside - you don't want the envelope to be glued shut)!
And there you have it - just fold the top down and let it dry.
Ta-da! You can go many different ways with this. I made some envelopes from maps and some from sheet music as well.
I liked the storybook ones so much I made a bunch!
Such tiny little envelopes needed something equally tiny to tuck away inside.
I cut little cards from some cardstock I had in my (never used) scrapbooking stash and found some tiny stamps from our (long unused) stamping stash. I love the "Just a Little Note" stamp! The cards needed a little something, so I brushed the edges on a gold stamp pad.
I'm normally not much for stamping or card making, but I love upcycling books and sheet music! And old maps. If anyone has any old maps they don't want (especially world maps) send them my way!
I've listed sets of the storybook and music envelopes and cards here on my Facebook page if anyone is interested in buying some! They are in the album with my paintings and journals.
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