DIY Fold and Send Stationery

I found these cute little Fold and Send Letters at Target a while back. I posted the first one I found back in February on this post. By the time I went back for more this one was the only one left, and it was on clearance. I know, it has a cartoon dinosaur on it, but it was on clearance - what was I supposed to do?

This is what the back looks like when it’s folded, before it’s sealed.

On the front there are lines on which to write the mailing address, along with a few dinosaur tracks :-) He should have wiped his dirty little green feet before tracking across my paper! Bad dinosaur!

Since Target no longer carries it and I haven’t seen it anywhere else, I thought I’d try making some of my own to use once this is gone. It’s pretty simple, actually.

You will need a 12” piece of paper. I may see if I can make it work with 8-1/2 x 11 paper later, but since I have a L O T of 12 x 12 paper, I started there.

Cut the paper to 7-3/4” x 12”. Measure in 1/2” on each 12” side and use a pencil and ruler to mark it. If you have one of those paper trimmers with the single sliding blade and a ruler on it, that makes it a lot easier. If you have one, you know what I’m talking about. If not, you can see one here. That’s what I used to cut these because I am NO good with scissors and you wouldn’t want to see what it would look like if I tried to cut a line that long with scissors.

Cut off that 1/2” down to 7” on each side, and up to 1-1-4” from the bottom, leaving  3-3/4” flaps like you see on the dinosaur paper in the first photo above.

Either fold or score the paper at 3-3/4”, 7”, and 11”, and fold in the side tabs. I rounded the corners with a corner rounding punch, but you can leave them square.

I cut the ends of the flaps at an angle, making it easier to fold in.

You should end up with something that looks like this:

 

A lot of the 12 x 12 paper is double sided, but if it just has a color on the opposite side, it shouldn’t be a problem for writing on at all. The other side of that paper is white, but this is a light purple on the other side.

 

I know, there aren’t any lines :-(. I probably could print some after cutting it but before trimming out the tab, and I may try that if my writing gets too messy. Anyway, all you have to do is write your letter, fold it up and seal it with some tape or glue, add a label for the address, stick a stamp on it and pop it in the mailbox. I usually end up adding a few extra folded sheets because I am a long winded letter writer (say that three times!) most of the time.

If you’ve got some 12 x 12 paper laying (lying?) around, give it a try and let me know what you think. If this is too difficult to understand, please let me know and I will make clearer instructions.

Have fun with it!