Making Beautiful Stationery With What You Have At Home.
BY SARAH L.
Sarah is a music teacher by day, wishful dreamer by night. She spends her time singing to her houseplants, devouring books for breakfast, and haphazardly splattering words on sheets of paper. A Pacific Northwest transplant, she has dug her roots deeply into Oregon soil and calls it her home.
Picture it: The stationery aisle of any department store. The intoxicating smell of fresh paper, the buttery softness of leather bound notebooks, and the bright colors popping out from the greeting cards and decorative stationery papers. This aisle has always been kryptonite, for both me and my wallet. Without fail, I caress the notebooks, touch all of the paper, and leave the aisle with at least three things that absolutely were not on my shopping list. Why must pleasurable things cost money?
No, but seriously. Stationery always seems like it’s more expensive than it should be. It’s just paper, right? Why do 100 sheets of decorative paper cost $15 when 500 sheets of blank paper cost $5? Is it really that expensive to make paper look pretty?
Over the past few years, I have challenged this question head-on. I decided that I wasn’t going to spend any unnecessary money on stationery. That meant I had to make my own with what I already had at home. As an avid letter writer, this was a daunting task that I thought would eat up hours of my time. Admittedly, there were some time sucks and messy moments (Believe me, I tried to make recycled paper in my blender once. Oh, it was messy.), but there were also some successful moments that took minimal time and energy.
While I’m sure we’d all get a kick out of reading the epic failures I had along this make-your-own-stationery-at-home journey, it would probably be more productive if I told you about the methods that were successful. That way you can get started making stationery of your own.
DECORATIVE PAPER
You can get extra creative with this! All you need is paper (any kind) and something that will change the plain appearance of the paper. You don’t even need craft supplies on hand to make some cool looking paper. If you want to go for a vintage look, you can stain the paper with coffee or black tea, or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can burn the edges of the paper with a candle or a match. (Be careful though!) Feeling dainty? Go for a stroll through a meadow or park and pick some wildflowers. Press them in a heavy book and after a few days, tape or glue them to your piece of paper. This works with autumn leaves, too.
If you happen to have more traditional crafty supplies lying around the house, you can use markers (or highlighters) to draw colorful squiggles down the side of your paper. Use a hole punch along the margins and keep the scraps for some bonus confetti. Splatter watercolors all over to add a boost of color. If you have any magazines lying around, you can cut out images and glue them to the sides or corners of the paper. And of course, washi tape and stickers are great to use if you need to make a lot of stationery really fast.
ENVELOPES
For this you’ll need some adhesive (tape or glue) and some kind of paper. Any durable paper will work. Magazines, wrapping paper, old calendars, newspapers, and paper grocery bags are great! Once I saved some old, tattered children’s books from the garbage and used the pages from those to make envelopes.
It’s also helpful to have some labelling stickers to create a space to write addresses, but you can also do this by gluing blank pieces of paper to the front, or making rectangles with white-out. Envelope templates are helpful as well—you can find them easily online, but you can also fold your envelope paper around the card or folded letter, as if you were wrapping a gift.
CARDS AND POSTCARDS
Let me start by saying: You don’t have to have cardstock to make some killer greeting cards and postcards! For your base you can use old cereal boxes, index cards, or even wood. (Yes, you can make a postcard out of a thin, flat piece of wood. Time to get your wood paints and wood burning tools out!) Decorate it up with paint, scraps of paper, stickers, glitter (if you dare), or all of the above. You can use any of the creative methods mentioned earlier for cards and postcards as well.
Making homemade stationery is certainly a journey, but it’s a journey worth taking. Not only is being creative fun, self-expression is important for the soul and reusing materials you have on hand is good for your wallet and the environment (if you’re into that).
Just remember, don’t be afraid to experiment and don’t get down on yourself if you’re dissatisfied with some of the stationery you make. You can always try again. Have fun, be kind to yourself, and celebrate the creative process!