This weekend provided a nice little break for us; we spent the past couple of days enjoying the slow pace of my Kansas hometown, and I got a chance to take some product photos. My vision was rustic chic, à la the works of Anna Claire Howard, a talented photographer with a knack for styling. Because my mother is an antiques dealer, I had access to all sorts of fun props!
The last step is to stick the DIY envelope liner in your envelope — and you’ve got a very impressive, classy presentation!
If you have any questions or tips, feel free to comment! Otherwise, enjoy embossing — and, of course, creating DIY envelope liners!
Do you know if there is such as thing as embossing ink for dip pens? How amazing would that be?!
Hi Andrea!
I’ve heard of people doing calligraphy with stamp pad refill inks (maybe like this one?) then embossing it; but I haven’t tried that myself! That would be really cool, though. 🙂
I really want to make these envelopes, but I’m a student, and I’m on a serious budget – plus, since I’m still pretty itinerant, I don’t want to acquire a bunch of craft supplies till I’m more settled. Is there a reason this wouldn’t work out with glitter glue instead of embossing? What about just a gold sharpie that you can make dots with? In other words, do you have any suggestions for making something very similar to this, with a minimum amount of supplies?
Hi Sara!
No, no reason at all — you absolutely could DIY them with the gold of your choice. I just like the effect embossing gives because it’s very sparkly … almost like a gold piece of jewelry! I would say that your second best option would be glitter glue, and the third best option would be Sharpie (since it’s a little dull). You could also do dots of glue and sparkle gold glitter over them. Alternatively, you could use a glitter paint like this one — which Amazon reviewers say costs about $1.50 at Hobby Lobby. My last suggestion would be to purchase a piece of gold card stock like this, use a hole puncher to create little circles, and glue the circles to the liner in a polka dot pattern. I’ve seen glitter card stock at craft stores like JoAnn’s and Michael’s, so I think that would be a very cheap way to DIY these!
Any way you look at it, there are a lot of ways to get this effect without spending a lot of money on craft supplies! Hopefully these suggestions have helped you out; the liners will be perfect for holiday cards this year. 🙂
Awesome, these are amazing suggestions! I’m going to head over to Hobby Lobby/Michael’s and see what’ll work best… that gold paint seems like a good option! And I’ve seen that glitter card stock too… it might make for an awkward texture, but it would definitely be really sparkly. I’ll try a few things and see what works! Thanks for such a helpful and prompt reply! I super love your blog – so many amazing ideas. 😀
Actually, I’ll bet you’d be surprised at the texture with the glitter gold card stock! It would probably dry relatively flat; and then you could cut about an inch strip of the card stock to “wrap” up your card/letter … kind of like the blue belly band on these. Whatever you do, I am sure it will turn out really cool! And I’m glad you like reading the blog; I like writing it, so it’s a pretty good deal for both of us. 😉 Have fun shopping! There’s a European bakery right by the Boulder Michael’s, so my Michael’s trips are always about a bazillion hours long since I spend forever in Michael’s and then I’ve got to go buy a piece of Bavarian fig cake {because … why not?}.
Girly girly, you would have to really LOVE the person this envelope is going to to go to that trouble! Charming
Says the woman who paints beautiful acrylic flowers on her envelopes! 😉 It does seem like a lot of work … but the process takes about two minutes!
Lovely work as usual Lindsey!
I’m obsessed with the embossing powder, but unfortunately here in Italy I can’t easily find a website that sell this stuff here (without spending tons of money in shipment costs).
I’m hoping to find it on amazon someday! xx
I’m sad you can’t easily find embossing powder! Embossing is so much fun. I found some powders in the UK … maybe they’ll happily ship to Italy? :-/ Otherwise, Amazon has everything you need!