Envelope Books

A few weeks ago I put together these books made from envelopes. My friend and I have been making “Choose Your Own Adventure” quizzes for each other and wanted a way to store them. 

In middle school I used a book similar to this for a project that combined my english and geography classes. We had to read a novel called Kiss the Dust by Elizabeth Laird, which followed a young girl named Tara who had to flee Iraq with her family over the border into Iran. For our English grade we had to write letters in the perspective of Tara, and for our Geography grade we had to draw images and maps of her Tara’s journey. The images were glued on the outside of envelope, and the letters went inside. 

I remember thinking this was a more unique project, and had a lot of fun filling up my book with each part of the assignment. The envelope books I made this time were much simpler (we did an accordion-style binding on the middle school book) but can be used in a variety of ways and can be easily adapted to be made with what materials you have. Here is how I made mine!

What you’ll need:

• Envelopes

• Colored or patterned paper

• Scissor or paper cutter

• Ruler

• Pencil

• Hole punch

• Rings, brads, ribbon, thread, etc. for the binding (I used plastic jump rings that are used for jewelry making)

• Decorations or photos 

Directions:

1. Decide how many envelopes you want in your book. Depending on what you will be using to bind your book together, you may only be able to use a few (I used eight envelopes.)

2. Cut your decorative paper to the same size as your envelopes. This will be your cover.

3. Using a ruler, take one of your envelopes and mark a small dot with your pencil where you want to punch your holes. I marked three times, but about 2-4 holes will be fine.

4. Now, punch the holes over the marks. 

5. Using the envelope you punched the holes in, hold it over another envelope and use it as a guide to punch the hole in the same spot. Carefully do this for all of your envelopes and your decorative paper cover.

6. With all of your holes punched, combine all of your pieces in the direction you want them. It is now time to connect the book together. I took my plastic jump rings and easily snapped them closed. It is up to you how you want to connect them though, so use what you have available!

7. Finally, decorate your cover any way you want and fill up your envelopes with notes or other paper souvenirs! You can also decorate the outsides of the envelopes with drawings or photos.

Here are some photos of the final product:

I still remember how to do the accordion binding from the book I made in middle school, and I might put one together to show how cool that version is. It is a little more time-consuming (especially since this version can take just a few minutes to put together) and involves a bit of glue. What is nice about the accordion though is that since there isn’t a hole punch, the envelope stays completely intact, and the books can open up all the way flat.