Thursday 2 October 2008

recycled envelopes

More recycling! What a green blog this has been lately!

I've been recycling envelopes and magazines - that's right, 2 in 1 recycling :o)


The first couple of envelopes I'll show you were made by opening out a used envelope and sticking a magazine page over the top of the addressed side. Then cut off the excess and glue it all back together. This makes a good sturdy envelope.


On this one below, I used a page from a Playmobil catalogue. I like this one.

The next few envelopes were made from those boring envelopes you get with your bills. They were a bit more ripped so I chopped them up and made 'freestyle envelopes' - no template, just do it! I think it worked fairly well. I lined these with magazine pages. These are quite sturdy too. Although because they're irregular sizes, they're best used for letters instead of greetings cards.



The last lot of envelopes were just made from magazines. I made my own envelope templates by taking apart an envelope, drawing around it onto a piece of card (this card was from a cereal box - yet MORE recycling!) and cutting out the card. With the template, you can make all the envelopes you want.

These little envelopes above were made from pages of a catalogue and are a bit flimsy, but still quite cute. The envelope below was made from a page from Empire magazine and it's much thicker (although, obviously not as thick and the lined envelopes).

So you see, recycling IS fun! I've put some more pictures of the envelopes onto Flickr if you'd like to see them. My plastic crocheted bag is slowly coming along, although I'm running out of plastic bags so it's the perfect time to raid our friends' cupboards so that we can recycle their plastic bags. I'll update you when it's taken shape a bit more.

Something special is happening on Monday, so be sure to check back then.

How green have you been lately?

7 comments:

  1. How totally cool those envelopes are. Definitely something I'd try myself and help the kids do.

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  2. They are indeed cute.

    Most of my envelopes go in the recycling bag, though the girls do sometimes use them as scribbling paper in times of paper famine :o)

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  3. Hey Pippa,it's Vicky's husband. Have been checking out your blog since Vicky added it to hers and your work is so so cool. I saw the badges yesterday...really loved them. I thought that was cool but then I come back today and see the envelopes.What a great idea!That's great talent; thinking outside the box!

    Keep up the great work! Love it!

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  4. What a lovely post, you totally inspired me! Have a look :o)

    http://raisinlike.blogspot.com/2008/10/carfty-paper-galore.html

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  5. Ah this is how I post out my orders, I think they look really good - Royal Mail prob don't like it cos they use electronic address readers but who cares!!

    Thanks so much for your lovely comments and I'll try to change my blog format if the colour causes problems... I just used one of the templates... not very techy :o)

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  6. Thank you all for your lovely comments - thank you Vianney!

    kitschensink: HA! I never thought of the problems Royal Mail might have. Don't go changing you blog format just for me!

    sharona: how lovely to know that I have inspired someone! Thank you so much for the link!

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  7. awesome ideas! fantastic, I'm totally inspired to make some recycled envelopes!

    :)
    candy

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