The mini card & matching envelope is very easy to make (it takes me about 10 minutes to print and assemble), but just in case you need it, here are instructions on how to make it.
Instructions
What you need
- 1 Sheet of cardstock paper – double sided. Either A4 or Letter sized paper
- Scissors
- Optional: Ruler
- Optional: Scoring tool
- PDF Viewer software
- Color printer
Printing
You need 1 sheet of paper for each little card & envelope set.
Cardstock is great, I use the cheap, plain ones – they are not too thick and the print comes out well enough.
I do change the printer setting to High for better results, though standard printing will work as well.
You could use textured paper, it would look nice with this design. It was originally drawn on textured watercolor paper :-)
Tip:
When printing something double-sided, despite years & years of printing, I still can get confused about which side to feed. I use a really simple trick for it:I mark a little X in the top right corner when feeding the first side into the printer. When coming to print the other side, I hold the sheet with the X in the top right corner, and just flip the paper horizontally, so now the X is still in the top, but facing away from me, on the top left back side…
* Ha, sorry, a long description for a really simple thing!
Scoring
While not mandatory, I recommend scoring the dotted lines before cutting, it makes folding later on much easier, and more precise.
For scoring, you don’t need a special tool, you can use anything which will make a thin indentation to the paper, yet will leave no other mark. Use the back side of an X-acto knife, a pen which has run out of ink, or even a corn holder like I did, it’s actually perfect for the job.
Place the ruler along one of the dotted lines where marked Score & Fold, run your scoring tool along the line. Don’t use much force, you only want to leave some indentation, not tear through the paper.
Cutting
Cut around the Card shape, the Envelope shape and the round Seal.
You have it marked on the inside design.
I used something called Bleed here – its a thin margin, “bleeding” out of the final card size (hence the name), so if the cutting isn’t precise, there won’t be a white margin. I also made the design so you only have cutting outlines on the inside design, so there will be as few guide lines showing as possible.
Fold & Glue
Fold the card in half, in valley fold, so the tree is facing outside, the lines in. The envelope should be folded in valley folds as well, on all 4 sides.
Then put a bit of glue on both side flaps where marked, fold the bottom half over, run your finger over it to smooth and secure.
That’s it, really.
Now you just need to write your text in.
Sealing the envelope
Since this envelope is so small, I don’t think there’s need to put glue on the envelope itself. Put glue on the back side of the seal, and use it to connect the envelope’s top flap to its body.
More Photos
If you’re interested, I briefly wrote about painting this tree and its friends in this blog post.
I truly hope you and the recipient will enjoy this little card!