Bonus post - saving envelopes (hoard-rant)

 This is a bonus post - scroll down to see the regular Monday post.

The topic of how to make books or albums out of envelopes came up on CyberScribes and Eliece posted directions for one of my accordion books. I have yet to find an image. Yesterday I spent a few hours organizing my envelopes and came across this booklet. It is a spiral bound book that I had done at Office/Max/Depot/Kinkos. I had done 40 envelopes for a birthday and made photo copies before they were mailed. You could do the same thing if you wanted to slice all four edges of envelopes that were all the same size and just bind the fronts. I have not taken in a stack of actual envelopes to see if the coil-binding machine will accept actual envelopes. I might do that and report back.

The cool binding machine can accommodate much taller stacks of paper. However, the coil is also much larger. I do not know what the max is. If I get there, I will ask.

I also found an unfinished project.

I have a stack of A7 envelopes and I have been cutting an opening in the envelopes so that I can stack them around a clear box that greeting cards came in. 

Then, I will use one or two envelopes for the lid.

It will just look like a stack of envelopes, but it will be a box. It is reminiscent of the secret boxes inside of books that have had the pages glued together and an a square opening cut in the middle.

I saw something like this that also had a ribbon wrapped around the lid and the box. It lined up, so that the stack of envelopes looked like it was tied with a ribbon, but you could still open the box. I rather like that detail.

This is just a rough idea of how it would look with the *lid* opened.

Will I ever finish this project?

I'd love to know.

This was the scene when I was organizing the envelopes.

And, sadly, this is the entire stack of envelopes that I was able to part with. It might be time for an intervention. 

I am trying to keep my collection from expanding beyond those 4 drawers in the corner. Eventually, each one will have a name on it so that my survivors will have one drawer of mementos. They will not have to sift through my stuff. If Mr Wilson starts pushing daisies sooner than I do, I will have his drawer divided into thirds and they can each collect their third without sifting. 

Perhaps I should take requests from younger exchangers who would be interested in having a portion of the collection and leave directions for my heirs to send *final mailings* to my dear pen pals. 

Or perhaps, I could get myself back to the job of organizing that room.