Recycled Envelopes...my attempt at crafting...

I am not a crafty individual. In fact, the craftiest thing that I ever do is post here about the mail that people are kind enough to send me. Aside from the milk cartons and newspapers in my house, I'm not much of a recycler either--much to the dismay of many of my friends, mail lovers, and followers I am sure. As I sat down to write some of my (past) due pen pal letters I realized I had stacks of paper and cards but almost no envelopes. As it was late, and I wanted to get at least a few of these letters in the mail the next morning, I began my hunt for something that I would be able to use as an envelope; Surely I had something, even an old envelope that I would be able to slap some decorative paper or stickers on and reuse. That's when I found it. Tucked in to a small (and rather useless) draw of what I like to call my "snail mail" desk  sat 2011s wall calendar. I had taken it down to put up this years calendar and just stuck it in an open spot, more than likely with intentions of just giving it the old heave-ho!  I thought to myself "the pages are good heavy paper, I don't want to go out to buy envelopes and I was just tossing it out anyway, why not use them as I'm in a bind". Next thing I know, out come the scissors, the ruler, a pencil and a glue stick!

My first attempt was .....well it was a complete fail. I started with a rectangular page and did some cropping to make it more of a square. I must have gotten a little over zealous with my trimming as the corners did not want to meet properly in the middle.....after several attempts of folding and creasing and refolding and more creasing, I decided the best idea was to scrap that particular try. As you can see, it's kind of sad looking...
 

On my second attempt and crafty recycling, I thought it would be in my (and the prospective envelopes) best interest to use the paper as is. A bit of folding and tucking would make a simple envelope, but also something that would dress up the average letter (it also helps when your calendar showcases the city of Berlin). For this envelope I decided to fold the page in half width wise in order to make a more square envelope--perfect for my letter written on the inside of a world travel themed note card!
 

Because this was my first try with creating from calendars, I was concerned about how well the letter would fit and if it would be fairly well protected. As I said earlier, I like the thickness of the calendar pages so I wasn't to concerned that it would rip in the mail as opposed to the page not folding well or the letter having to be folded in some odd way to fit. Fortunately, the page makes for a roomy square envelope --and the folded in sides make for a nice protective holding pouch.
 

A bit more folding and gluing resulted in seven of the twelve pages being used--6 envelopes (3 square and 3 rectangular) and that first page scrapped for the sake of learning! I did some decorative taping and the in morning dropped them in the mail. As it was only a couple of days ago I haven't heard from those on the receiving end yet, but I am hoping they enjoy. With the couple that I have left, i am thinking about getting some jeweled stickers to add some sparkle to the pages and maybe even using a hole punch and then tying the envelope closed with a nice ribbon. All and all I am happy with my first envelope making adventure and I am keeping my eye out for materials around the house that I would be able to reuse to send some mail love!

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. Comments, questions, tips and advice are more than welcome! I would love to see any of the creative envelopes you guys have gotten in the mail, I know I love the ones that make their way to me! I'm off to get a few postcards together for tomorrow, happy mailing!