Envelope Liners

Envelope liners are great way to dress up a basic envelope.  It is a pretty basic process that only requires a few materials.

The principle is simple:  you have an envelope, cut out a liner, and then you find some way to stick the liner in the envelope.

So take your envelope and trace the outline onto the paper that you want to use as a liner.

I generally line things up so the liner paper is about 1/8-1/4 inches shorter than the envelope (height-wise) because you won't see this edge of the liner (it is in the bottom of the envelope) and while there is no problem if your liner is a little short, there is a big problem if it is a little long.  As your liner is going to be more or less hidden on the inside of the envelope, this is a great opportunity to use paper that may have a crumple or a mark on a portion of it.

You can line up the envelope (width-wise) with the edge of your liner paper, even past the edge, because you are going to draw your cut lines on the interior of the envelope outline.  Though you don't have to do all your mark making on the reverse side of your liner paper, I think it is best to do so, just so you won't have to worry about seeing these marks later.

Deciding where your cut lines are going to go is really up to you.  The biggest factor is the gum on the envelope flap.  This is what keeps your envelope sealed, so it is best not to cover it.  Aesthetically, I like to keep the overall board equal from the tops to the side, but you do what you want.

Just cut out along the lines.  If you are using a paper with a very fine fiber, it is much faster to use a metal ruler to rip your paper (plus you get a soft, deckle-like edge) instead of using scissors to cut it out.  Also, if you are doing this en masse, you should make a template to trace around for the liner out of chipboard/card stock to save time.

After you have your liner cut out, you just have to adhere it in the envelope.  This is the most tricky part.  Well, not so much tricky, but you do have some choices.  The most important thing is that you only put adhesive on the liner on the portion of the liner that will be on the flap of the envelope.  If you put the adhesive lower, on the envelope body, then you will have bunching and wrinkling when you fold down the flap.  Just not attractive.

The main question here is picking out your adhesive.  I am using ATG tape.  There are other adhesives that you could use, depending on the papers that you are using, but ATG tape, or another double sided tape, will always work for everything.  Basically, glue stick or any type of liquid tape will show if you are using delicate papers, vellum, or coated papers (like metallic).  It will look really bad.  And here, I am using a delicate paper as my liner and a metallic paper for my envelope.  So I just use ATG tape for everything when I am doing invitations and cards.  I should also mention that the ATG gun is pretty expensive, but if you are doing a big project, it becomes cheaper than any other type of tape very fast.

Alright, now slip the liner into the envelope being careful not to stick the liner down until you have it in its final position.  Do not fold over your flap until you have your envelope stuffed!!  If you fold it over right now, the fold will be in the wrong place and when you fold later, when the envelope is stuffed, you have a funky looking double-fold.  So just hold tight.

Okay, now your envelope is full and ready for mailing.  Fold down and seal.  Get that guy in the mail and prepare to hear back on how awesome it looks.