Envelope liner DIY

I got the question of how I made the envelope liners for our wedding invitations, and thought maybe some others would be interested as well. It is a very simple way of making your mail fancy and extra special.


What you need:

- The envelope you want to line
- Paper for lining
- Paper or cardboard for template
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Glue

STEP 1: Measure your envelope. Subtract a few millimeters from each side, and keep in mind angles like the one above. You can let the liner stick half way down the envelope like I did, or line the whole thing. This isnt really necessary, and if your liner is expensive, this will cut the costs.

STEP 2: Make a template on sturdy paper or cardboard. Be more accurate than the drawing above suggests. (It´s not my actual template - I cheated a little bit)

STEP 3: Make sure your template fits the way you want inside your envelope. Here the sides are slightly more angled than the envelope, which you may or may not believe was done on purpose.

STEP 4: Cut as many liners as you need, with the help of your template and a good pair of scissors. You can also use a paper cutter if you have one. 

STEP 5: Glue your liner to your envelope. To avoid wobbly paper, let it dry under a stack of books or something, to keep it nice and good looking.

Voilá! You have a pretty lined envelope! 

Eit nådeår

Eg gledar meg over Herren,
mi sjel jublar over min Gud.
For han har kledd meg i frelsesklede
og sveipt meg i rettferds kappe
lik ein brudgom som set på seg presteleg turban,
lik ei brur som pyntar seg med smykke.

For som jorda let spirene veksa,
som ein hage let frøa gro,
så skal Herren Gud
la rettferd og lovsong spira fram for alle folkeslag.

Jesaja 61,10-11

Wedding dress update

You might know that I am working on tweaking my wedding dress, so I thought I would come with an update, perhaps only for especially interested crafters. No pictures, but I guess you will be understanding considering the subject.

The extra slip I bought needed a small change in the back to match the dress perfectly. With slippy silk, that took a little longer than anticipated, but turned out very well in the end. Hand-basting is the key here.

The dress was basically two separate dresses, one in a lace fabric, and one a lining/slip. Since I had to take both of them in, it seemed just as easy to make them into one dress with interfacing instead of the two original ones. After careful investigation and research (see blogs with tutorials here and here...) for the dress itself, I decided to rip open a lot of seams and do this thoroughly. What is implied here is that I normally don´t follow all these careful steps, being a lot more careless with my restyled thrift store finds like this skirt.

The next step was basting the lining to the dress by hand. No risks taken here. After trying it on, then more basting and needles and fittings, I could finally sew some stitches on the sewing machine. Now the bodice fits me, almost like a glove, and I am one step closer to a wearable wedding dress. I am optimistic to this project and look forward to continue working on it.

Tomorrow morning we are off for our Easter holiday in Ålesund and Bergen. There will be lots of wedding planning, and I look forward to seeing friends and family. Especially little Øyvind, who called today and said his first words to me: "hello" and "aunt"! Too precious.

Wedding registry

Who knew it would be so hard to pick a set of wine glasses? Or frying pans? There are more choices than I had ever thought, and while some are obvious (fancy china), others have proved more difficult.  It is no secret that I care a lot more than Mike about the look of these kitchen items, so unless he hates something, I can decide. Right now I am trying to decide between a few series from Hadeland Glassverk and Holmegaard. Some are more classic, while others are modern.

Here are some of my favorites:

Future water or juice glass

Perfection wine series

Minima caraffes

Sentimento wine series

Odysseé wine series

What do you think? Any tips on how to chose?

If you are curious to what else we want, you can check our wedding blog: mikeandragnhild.blogspot.com

Wedding invitations DIY

I love paper. And envelopes. I have a whole suitcase full of decorative paper, cutouts from magazines, scrapbook paper bought on travels and much more. Naturally, when it came to our wedding invitations, I was quite excited to send out pretty mail.

After reading a few wedding/illustrator blogs I had a good idea of what I wanted, and kraft paper was a non-negotiable. It doesn´t hurt that it is recycled, which makes it almost second hand, or what?

I have surprised myself a little with this project. Originally I planned to go to Oslo to score the PERFECT paper for envelope liners, but ended up using something I have had for many years, but found too pretty to use. I calculated and thought I would have enough, but my math didn´t add up right, and I ran out. Luckily the store still had the same paper, probably 9 years later!

Kraft paper, illustration, typography, pretty patterns and vintage stamps. Could my heart be happier?

For the layout I used Indesign, as it is the program I know best. You can recreate something similar in Word, as I did for the sketch, or use Photoshop or whatever you prefer. The fonts are free and found online.

In total, the only really new thing I bought was three sheets of light A4 cardstock and some washi tape. The rest was new/recycled, vintage, or stuff I had at home!

My total spent for around 60 invitations: 650 kr, plus 500 kr for postage.

Sources: 
- Kraft paper and envelopes: Green Earth Supplies
- Envelope liners: Norway Designs in Oslo. You can find the same styles online by searching for florentine paper
- Illustration: Angie Thompson
- Vintage stamps: Auctions at QXL
- Embroidery thread: From my grandma´s sewing kit
- Monogram paper: Norli at Arkaden in Skien
- Washi tape: WeXStore