How To: DIY Envelopes

My Sister sent over some templates for envelopes with a note that said she didn't know how to use them. So here is my photo montage of how to use an envelope template:

First of all, let's pick out some pretty paper.  Mine came from a stack of paper purchased at Michaels' in the clearance aisle.  Two pages out of the stack were damaged, but at 60% off, I could deal with that.

I put the template on the paper, positioning it where I thought it would look best.  Then I drew around the outline of the template with a pencil.  Why pencil? Because you can erase the marks later.

This box template, as I look at it will have a sort of triangular shape.  It will be long and have a very narrow bottom. 

So I traced around the whole thing, leaving out the parts in the middle.  We will get back to those in a minute.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut around the basic shape of it to get it off the bigger part of the paper. Then carefully, I cut the smaller shapes around the tabs and at the bottom and stuff. 

I'm sure there are some scrapbooking tool that would make this easier, but what I have is a pair of scissors, so I'm going to go with that.

So now you have an outline of the whole thing. 

Take that, AND the template, and flip them both to the underside.

Now is the time to find a scoring tool. I know they make them and that they are cool for scrapbookers, but remember, I'm a knitter.  So what I'm using is a size 1 knitting needle.

Taking that, I  used it to score all those interior lines in the template. 

Now that all those lines are scored, it will be easier to fold them all. Fold at all the score lines to the inside of the box.

Now you'll see I made a slit on one part of the upper box.  On the template, above the area with the tape where it said 'Box' you'll see a line. 

This line will need to be cut all the way through as the tab from the other side goes into it and closes the box.

Now is the time, if you have some sort of adhesive to grab it: Double sided tape, glue, whatever.  I don't have that kind of stuff at hand, so I'm going to fake it.

Now add the adhesive to the tabs.  I've written on all the tabs to show you where.

Now assembling these boxes goes pretty quickly, I'd start out with that bottom tab first, then the long one at the left, then the two on top.  When assembled, it looks like this

Box templates usually are created the same way: an outside that can be traced and cut, then some slits that are meant for you to use a scorer to make dents in the paper to make folding easier.  Usually when you see small tabs like the ones that say 'put adhesive here' it's for putting adhesive there.

Once you can puzzle that out, then there is only the top of the box to think about.  More often than not, there will be some way to close it. In the case of this one, it was a slit that was cut through one tab of the top so that the other tab could slide in.