Sunday, May 24, 2015

Pocket Letter Lite

Hello there friends,
So the latest rage is pocket letters. I think it's a clever idea to keep snail mail and that ancient tradition of writing letters alive and well. I will admit, I'm not a letter writer- I'm a card maker. Well, I have a friend who sends me sweet messages through snail mail & I'm super bad about writing her back :( ---> (insert boos and hisses here). Anyhoo, when I came across this pocket letter concept I thought of my friend. I thought I would give one a try & she would be the one to make it for.

So the basic steps to creating a pocket letter is taking a 9 pocket trading card sleeve and creating little inserts for each pocket, one to be a letter to include in one of the pockets. I found the sleeves at Target for 70 sleeves for $9. OK, that's cheap and probably a few lifetimes' supply!

So when I started working on it I became a bit overwhelmed. It took me forever to create the first insert and I had 8 more to create! No bueno :( So... I resized it to be a little easier to complete. What did I do? I cut 3 of the pockets off the edge! Now it was a 6 pocket letter *Ü*

'Nuff blabber. Here's the final product:
 Of course, it's hard to photograph the pockets, so I took each one out of the sleeves & took a pic of each one. I snipped off the side with the binder strip because my friend isn't going to put it in a binder.

Here's the first one:
***I water colored all of the images for her pocket letter with Distress Inks.

The second pocket contains a tea bag and a teapot diecut.

The 3rd: This is my letter. I added a couple of vellum feather die cuts (because she's a writer). 

The 4th: Water colored the butterflies & added a die cut Hello

 The 5th: Water colored the Dogwood flowers & heat embossed "friendship" on a strip of vellum.

The 6th: A shaker birdcage. Water colored birdie.

The good thing about cutting it down to 6 pockets is that it folded down to fit a regular A2 envelope. *Ü*

I liked the idea of wrapping a doily around it & tying it with some twine before putting it in the envelope.*Ü*

I hope my friend enjoys this pocket letter. You can find more info about them ---> HERE.
All the goodies  I used are listed below.

Thanks so much for sticking around for this long post! Have you created a pocket letter? It's a very cool & creative process---that I can handle in 6 pockets! Lol... *Ü*

¡Adiós amigas!

The 411
I used papers from the Quilting Bee 6x6 pad from MME for all of the inserts. All images were water-colored with Distress Inks.

1) Stamp: Stuck on You-Lawn Fawn, Dies: Precious Polaroids- MFT

2) Stamp & Dies: Always time for Tea- MFT

3) Dies: Feathers & Arrows-MFT, "You"- PTI

4) Stamp & Dies: Antique Flowers & Butterflies- Hero Arts, "Hello" die-Wplus9

5) Stamp & Dies: Antique Flowers & Butterflies- Hero Arts, Happy Every Day- SSS

6) Dies: Contempo Cage, Musical Notes-MFT, Assorted sequins, acetate

3 comments:

  1. I had never heard of Pocket Letters until I saw your post. I watched Jannette Lane's videos and think this is a cute idea. Not sure if I want to send things around the world, however, I think my paper crafting niece and niece-in-law would enjoy receiving a pocket letter from me. I think it would also be fun to do these for children. Love your little inserts (especially that cute shaker bird and cage). Thanks for sharing this neat idea

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  2. Where have I been--I have never heard of pocket letters! What a fun concept. Love the doily wrapping and all of your themes. Your letter-writing friend will certainly enjoy receiving this.

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  3. I never heard too Karli and yours is so adorable so clever and very creative
    and you said 70 sleeves for $9.may I buy it 20 pieces Karli
    its a great price and I never seen it in germany
    if you tell me how many it is for 20 Pcs I will buy from you hehe
    I wish I get a card from you Karli
    and now I know you are not writing letter hehehe
    hugs, Monika

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