I absolutely love working with envelopes in my art practice, not only are they wonderfully unique pieces to display but they also serve many a practical purpose- to send, gift or store more of your collage/craft materials in!

This is a two-part post where I’ll begin with a brief overview on using envelopes in collage and provide some useful starting points. The second post will go into more detail about making your own envelopes to embellish and craft with.

The possibilities are endless with collage!

1) Let’s begin: what do you want to make?

Envelopes are very versatile- they can act as your canvas or be folded back up again and used as a functional piece. You can play with colour, composition and scale with a range of different artistic mediums and styles.

2) Getting ready: materials

This is not an extensive list but some useful materials include:

Envelopes (old and new!)

Tape (washi tape is perfect for this type of project, it is a masking-like tape that comes in a variety of colours and designs)

Drawing tools (pens, pencils, highlighters etc.)

Adhesive (glue stick, double-sided tape etc.)

Scissors

Extra materials:

Thread (to hand sew or machine stitch with)

Paint (acrylic or watercolour paints work best)

Images from old magazines, book pages and leaflets

This is a great way to recycle and reuse things you have around the house, it’s amazing what you can discover!

3) Let’s begin: prep your envelope

Unfold the envelope carefully, don’t worry if you tear the edges- it can be covered up with tape or paper later! Then, fold out all of the tabs so it lies flat on your work surface.

Rainbow envelopes!

4) Colours: choosing a colour palette

I prefer to work with a limited colour palette, normally 3 colours. I tend to go for two colours close together on the colour wheel and a complementary one to add a pop of contrast.

The Colour Wheel

5) Let’s get collaging!

Keep your colour palette in mind when adding different collage elements to your piece, it’ll make it look more cohesive and less ‘busy’. Play around with the composition until you’re happy.  Overlapping is key, but so is the balance with negative space. *Top Tip* Use your phone to take photos of different layouts, go back through your camera roll and choose your favourite one.

6) Finalising: sticking everything down

Once you’re happy with the layout and have made sure your envelope is the right way up, you can stick everything in place. This is another good time to take a photo on your phone to record your final design layout!

7) The finishing touches

Use tape to create vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines or grids- this creates some interesting ‘mini compositions’ in a collage. Add scribbles and repeated patterns over the top of your collage to draw attention to particular areas or to link elements together.

8) Assemble

If you want to rebuild the envelope, start by folding the tabs and sides back down and glue down any loose edges. Finally, line up the tabs and glue securely. I use double-sided tape for this part. Make sure you glue the smaller tab so the adhesive doesn’t show through.

Finished envelopes

Reverse side of envelopes

Close-up

Ta-dah! You now have a unique collaged envelope to keep or share. Thank you for following along and if you’d like to see my full video tutorial/step-by-step on collaged envelopes, it is available on my Instagram in the IGTV section (@evebaldryart)