How to Make Mail Art Envelopes

hi I am Julia hood the manager of school and family learning here at Renault a house Museum of American Art today and I Renauld a pop-up studio I am going to show you how to make male art envelopes out of paper that you might find around the house so pages from magazines old wall calendars scrapbook paper any sort of heavy ish paper that can provide an interesting envelope here are some example we've got this made from a wall calendar making a nice decorative envelope this is from a magazine and we've just put a label on top of it create that nice envelope and then finally you can also make your own Illustrated envelope using plain drawing paper or construction paper and just illustrating the envelope I'll show you what materials you'll need and how to make them

to make decorative envelopes find pages from magazines or old wall calendars or scrapbook pages for an illustrated envelope you'll need plain drawing paper construction paper or cardstock print out envelope templates from the links below you'll also need scissors a pencil and glue or double-sided tape for an illustrated envelope you'll need crayons markers or colored pencils Tamayo a mail art envelope you need first class stamps and an address label or piece of paper with the address you need clear tape to seal the envelope and put on a paper address label

once you have found a piece of paper you want to turn into an envelope place your envelope template over it and draw around the edges with your pencil then cut along the pencil lines to create your envelope

look at the dotted lines on your template these show you where to fold fold the edges of the envelope in with the pattern on the outside you should have a rectangular envelope shape at the end next place a small amount of glue on the two side tabs and glue the largest tab to them like so if you don't have a stick on a dress label you can create your own by writing on small pieces of white paper tape the name and address of the person you are sending the letter to on the front middle of the envelope then place your name and address on the back side on the top flap then place a stamp in the top right corner of the front of the envelope

to make an envelope you can draw on use construction paper or other plain paper trace and cut out an envelope shape using the template the same way we did with the printed paper again fold in the side tabs just as we did with the other envelope unfold to draw your illustration on the front make sure to leave room for the name and address of the person you will be sending this envelope fold together and glue the side tabs to the bottom just as we did with the other envelope after putting your letter or card inside seal the envelope with a piece of tape then write the address of the person you're sending the letter to on the front center of the envelope and your return address on the back top flap then place a stamp upper right corner of the front of the envelope