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Re-Purposed Letter Sets!

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Re-Purposed Letter Sets!
Swap Coordinator:iLoveMail (contact)
Swap categories: Letters & Writing  Handmade  Mail Art 
Number of people in swap:6
Location:International
Type:Type 3: Package or craft
Rating requirement:4.90
Last day to signup/drop:December 27, 2010
Date items must be sent by:January 10, 2011
Number of swap partners:2
Description:

(Thanks to @craftgasm for any and all inspiration for this swap! Including the picture above.) Please check out her Etsy shop to buy some really creative & fabulous stuff!

This is not a handmade letter set swap, but a re-purposed letter set swap! For this swap, we will create 1 letter set for each of our two partners. (Letter set = 2 sheets of writing paper & 1 envie in each.)

A re-purposed letter set can be made from book pages, ledger paper, vintage graphing paper, maps, atlases, lesson plan books, old-school style lined paper (the kind you used to practice cursive on), used school books, etc. It can be made from almost anything that wasn't originally a letter set.

While the sheets of writing paper will not be handmade, the envelopes to match must be. For instance, if you have an old atlas, you will cut out an envelope template from one or more of the pages (cut, fold & make into an envie) and then find other pages from the same book that can be used as "matching" letter paper. The letter paper does NOT have to be lined, but we snail-mailers always love lined-paper!

Guidelines for making your re-purposed letter sets:

  • envelopes must be handmade from sources listed above or similar and mailable size
  • no rubber stamping, drawing, painting or embellishing necessary
  • letter papers must be neatly and evenly cut to fit inside the handmade envelopes, folded or not
  • envelopes must have a blank space for the "to" address on the front. This can be a naturally-occurring blank area or a blank adhesive mailing label.
  • envelopes can be made from magazine pages, as long as they are lined & the letter paper is coordinating in some way
  • no blank/plain white paper allowed for letter paper; it can be the blank part of a map (like an ocean) or empty lines (like from an unused language workbook).
  • the letter papers should be NO smaller than the envelope they go with. For instance, if you make a 4x6" envie, the paper should be 8x6" so its only folded once to fit inside. If you make a 5x7 envie, the paper can be the same size, so as not to be folded at all. Letter papers can be folded to fit inside envies when sent.

If any of this seems unclear, please PM me or leave a comment with any questions before joining.

Usual swap rules apply; no 1's, 3's or no-sends in the last 3 months. Must log in regularly to Swap-bot & I will check profiles before assigning partners.

Let's see what we can come up with!

Discussion

pmj1959 12/13/2010 #

Do we add areas to write on the letter papers or just find pages that have larger areas where writing can be done without competition from the any type of illustration on the page? I'm sorry... I'm lost on that part.

iLoveMail 12/13/2010 #

You shouldn't add anything - you're correct - find pieces of "paper" that have an area for writing. What you said is perfect - "without any competition from any type of illustration on the page". Thanks so much :)

craftgasm 12/13/2010 #

Awww, thanks so much for the kind words! I'm so glad it's inspired you to make this swap - I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

allthisbeauty 12/26/2010 #

"envelopes can be made from magazine pages, as long as they are lined"

Huh? Why would the envelopes be lined?

hollycm6 12/26/2010 #

Some magazine pages are quite thin and I tend to line them. Perhaps that is what she means. I want to sign up but am having trouble coming up with paper for the writing part!!

allthisbeauty 12/27/2010 #

Oh! Not like.. with lines on them!! haha. That makes more sense.

The description talks about lined paper the whole way through, so I had that on the brain when I got to the envelope part.

iLoveMail 12/27/2010 #

Sorry for not checking comments sooner! Yes, @hollycm6 is correct - magazine pages should be lined with other paper or another magazine page for re-enforcement. Though I don't know if I'd make stationery out of magazines, as the writing paper part will be hard to come up with :) Maps would be good; paper place mats from restaurants; ledger paper or pages from an accounting book; atlases or maps; etc. Hope this helps!

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