Upcycled Embellished Gatefold

Hello everyone! Continuing the celebration of Earth Day this month, this week’s post highlights earth-friendly brown bag kraft products (100% recycled) and a gatefold piece. This was a learning experience for me because I’m embarrassed to say that I typically use all new paper when crafting. I ended up LOVING the look of the old book print though and will definitely be incorporating this style more.

I took a Cut Card Stock Gatefold item (Ponderosa Pine and Baronial Ivory) that I absolutely loved and added vintage paper to it to create a lovely envelope holder. It can be given as a gift to someone with the brown bag kraft envelope inside to hold money, another physical card or a gift card.

Step 1.
Take your gatefold and begin to trim the vintage paper. I used a circular punch and paper strips.
I think its best to not have this too planned. It makes the layout more dynamic. The older your book the better. The yellowing of the paper is important. The book I used has yellowing on the edges. Not the middle as much as I’d like :-(.

I didn’t do it, but you might want to use a bone folder and go over the scores once again so that the gatefold will lie completely flat. If you don’t no worries. Your outer envelope will end up “deadening” the fibers and it will be flat by the time your recipient opens!

I’m a big belly band person. Moreso than ribbon actually. I just think a trimmed belly band is a nice, clean look.

Wasn’t sure how the circles would work, but I ended up layering them. Not too many though because I did want the beautiful pine green to be a nice contrast.

Step 2.
Affix the vintage paper to the gatefold piece carefully. Add some more embellishments if you like. I went through my embellishment drawers to see what worked nicely with the paper and I found these super cute orange florals.

I only added the floral CLOSE to the center because you don’t want your recipient to struggle opening it. Sometimes with pieces like these though if you prefer it to ACTUALLY be closed, its fun to use some velcro.

Step 3.
Now its time to place the brown bag kraft envelope inside of the gatefold and add a message of congratulations to your recipient. You’ll have to trim your A7 envelope just a little, but it won’t matter because you’ll be sealing your sides with glue so no gifts (money, gift card, etc.) will fall out!

Step 4.

Finally, you can adorn your kraft brown bag envelope with more vintage paper, a personal message and even more embellishments if you prefer! This envelope is large enough for yet another card, but not too large if you’d like to place monetary gifts.