Traditionally, an envelope is used to ensure the privacy and safety of attachments during their transfer. However, the functionality of the enclosure for inserting papers is much wider. Envelopes can be used to pack not only letters, but also various small flat items.
The envelope, invented in England in 1820, replaced the wax seal that was used to seal paper messages. Over the course of two hundred years, this postal attribute has come a long way - from a simple shell for inserting and sending papers to packaging discs and banknotes, invitations and greeting cards, as well as gifts and small items. For these purposes, standard postal envelopes are far from always suitable. Most often, an ordinary A4 sheet of writing paper or cardboard is at hand, from which the packaging must be made. First of all, you should decide what of the available means and additional materials are available, and for what purposes you need an envelope:
- for business mailing of letters, envelopes printed on a printer from layouts created in any computer application (Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop and others) are suitable;
- If it is necessary for the envelope to be securely closed, you cannot do without glue or tape during its manufacture;
- those who know the basics of the art of origami can effortlessly make a simple unsealable envelope;
- for lovers of handmade and scrapbooking, the number of ways to turn an ordinary A4 sheet into creative packaging depends on their skill and imagination.
Relationship between paper size and envelope size
An ordinary sheet of office paper, which is commonly called A4, has a size of 210 × 297 mm and a diagonal of 364 mm. It correlates to a certain extent with the packaging formats used in postal services.
What kind of envelope size is convenient to use is easy to determine from the format correspondence table. To do this, replace the paper size letter "A" with "C" for the envelope size. You need a C4 envelope to fit A4 paper so that you can send your document without bending it. For a sheet folded in half, the C5 format is intended. DL (European) envelope conforms to the writing standard that folds A4 in three. C6 is the GOST envelope format adopted in our country during the Soviet era, in which an A4 sheet is put twice folded in the middle. These are the most generally accepted standards for mailing to the addressee.
As for making paper packaging on your own, it can be seen from the above diagram that one sheet of plain paper is not enough to make a C4 or C5 envelope. It is quite possible to make some variants for the C6 format, as well as smaller non-standard packages. They are perfect for invitations and postcards, CDs and photographs, money or gift certificates. It is clear that such envelopes are not intended to be sent by mail, they must be handed over to the recipient personally.
How to calculate the size of an envelope
There are many guides and step-by-step instructions for making envelopes from A4 paper on the net. When describing all kinds of design options for such packaging, templates or schematic images are most often used. Sometimes, before starting work, it is worth assessing the size of the future product. This drawing-calculation will help to do this.
The blank for the future envelope is a rhombus built along two perpendicular diagonals, which should be 2 times the size of the sides of the envelope. In this case, add 1cm to the final height of the envelope. This is necessary to align the top and bottom edges. For example, to get an 11x16 cm envelope, all calculations should be made for a base rectangle 12x16 cm in size. In this case, the diagonals will be 24 cm and 32 cm, respectively. But the size of A4 sheet is smaller (21x29, 7 cm). In order for such a rhombus to fit on it, it is necessary to start building a large diagonal in length from the very corner of the sheet. Measure out 32 cm, mark the middle on it. From this point, perpendicular to postpone equal-sized segments in both directions, totaling 24 cm (the length of the second diagonal).
When connecting the extreme points, we get a workpiece in the form of a rhombus. Having cut it out, you can start folding the envelope. You need to start again with a larger diagonal, bending the corners to the center. When folding the upper and lower edges of the sheet, the left increase (1 cm) should be taken into account. To get the sides, the fold must be made half a centimeter closer to the center of the workpiece. This completes the formation of the envelope. It remains only to glue the bottom corner with the sidewalls.
For those who do not care about the exact size of the envelope, there is a simplified version. A diamond-blank will turn out if you set aside 7, 2 cm on each side of A4 sheet, and cut off the extra corners.
Turning the letter itself into an envelope
The easiest thing to do is to do without the envelope at all. His role can be played by the letter itself, written on one side of A4 sheet. In this case, the second side will be designed to indicate the addresses of the sender and the recipient, or it will remain blank.
If the sheets are folded into a triangle with the text inward, then you get the legendary soldier's letters. During the Great Patriotic War, they were called front-line cocked hats.
The content written on the sheet will be hidden if you collapse it into a curly rectangle. The method is multi-stage and a little complicated in execution, but the message looks very presentable.
