Envelope liners are my favorite little bit of awesome to make an invitation POP! And the best part is that they are SO easy to do yourself!
I’ll walk you step-by-step through the process – let’s get this party started!
MATERIALS ROUND UP
You’ll Need:
scissors
pencil
ruler
double sided tape
sheet of paper or cardstock
envelope liner paper
envelope you’re lining
paper scorer*
*nice to have but not essential
PRO TIP: Head over to my Etsy shop for a huge selection of unique liners perfectly suited to any style or color scheme!
STEP 1: TRACE YOUR ENVELOPE
Place the envelope you’re lining in the corner of your cardstock and trace around the outside edges. Tracing it in the corner rather than the middle saves some paper and reduces the amount of touching between your envelope and pencil, in case you’re worried about keeping those envelopes pristine.
STEP 2: MEASURE YOUR ADHESIVE
Measure the thickness of the adhesive on your envelope flap. It’s probably between 0.25″ and 0.5″, but it depends on the envelope. This will help you figure out the right liner size so your liner fits inside the envelope and doesn’t cover up the adhesive. That would be awkward.
STEP 3: DRAW YOUR LINER
Go along the edges of your envelope outline, measuring inward the width of your adhesive, and making a small mark every few inches. Then use your ruler to connect the dots, creating an outline for your liner. If your envelope has any rounded corners, you can trace those onto your liner to get the curves to match.
STEP 4: CUT OUT YOUR LINER
Cut out the liner along the line you just traced. Ignore the original envelope tracing – we were just using that as a guide to make the liner!
STEP 5: TRACE THE LINER TEMPLATE ONTO YOUR LINER PAPER
If your liner paper design goes in a certain direction or doesn’t have a uniform pattern to it, you may want to play around with the leftover paper from your liner template to figure out what area you want to use for your liner. In this tutorial, I used a piece of alcohol ink art and wanted to make sure I had the most interesting areas showing in my liner before I started chopping it up.
Once you’ve figured out what area of the paper you want to use, trace the liner template onto it and cut out your liner!
PRO TIP: If your liner paper has a uniform pattern, or you just want to pick a random part of it, trace the liner on the back of the paper so no pencil lines show!
STEP 6: FOLD YOUR LINER
You’ll want to fold your liner before you insert it into the envelope so it doesn’t pucker or tear when you go to seal your envelope. Just slide your liner into the envelope printed side down, make sure it’s centered and lined up properly with the adhesive, then make a mark on the edge of the liner back where the envelope flap fold is on the left and right side. Then pull out the liner and make a crease across, using your two marks as a guide. This is where the scoring tool comes in super handy, but it’s not crucial. Just make sure you make a nice, tight crease with your fingernail or another smooth tool.
STEP 7: INSERT YOUR LINER
First you’ll want to put double-sided tape along the edges of the flap part of the liner, being careful to get as much of the point of the flap as you can so it doesn’t come unstuck when the envelope is opened. Unstuck liner flaps are like the skirt-tucked-into-your-underwear of the stationery world.
Slide the liner into your envelope and make sure it’s centered and the folds line up. Press the liner firmly into place onto the flap of the envelope, making sure the envelope adhesive isn’t covered. the bottom part of the liner that will go inside the envelope. We’ll leave the bottom part unstuck so it has some room to flex around the invitation.
STEP 8: PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK!
Only 99 more to go…! You got this! Or you can pay me to do it for you…
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