Make your own recycled envelopes from calendars or magazine pages from a 8.5 inches square pieces of paper.
I was making some envelopes when I realized that I could do it much easier without a lot of calculations and depending on the original picture size I could make a perfect envelope just about any time.
Revised Simple Envelope Making Instructions
- To make an envelope for a quarter folded piece of paper the square should be about 8.5 inches square, but you can get away with a smaller square down to around 7.5 inches, then after that the envelope will be too small.
- The top and bottom corners are folded up about 30% or just under a third of the length of the paper on the diagonal.
- The left and right side corners are folded in about 22% or just under a quarter of the width of the paper.
- Cut your picture square, picture side up.
- Rotate your square so that it is on the diagonal and decide which way is going to be the top of the envelope and the bottom.
- Turn picture over so that backside is up
 |  |
- Take bottom corner and fold it up one third of the way towards the top point and crease it.
- Now fold in the left and right corners, overlapping the just upturned part about ½ inch and crease. Now you have the width of the envelope.
- All that is left is to fold down the top corner about ½ inch overlapping the sides and crease it to finish the envelope and give it the height.
 |  |
 |  |
- Open the just folded envelope and you will see the crease lines.
- Now fold in the left and right corners first this time.
- Then fold up the bottom and cut off the tip that’s too long to be even with the sides.
- Open the bottom fold up again and apply a thin line of glue at the edge and fold back up and press.
- Your envelope is now finished.
 |  |
