Journal Accessories P.1: 5-Minute Mini Tag Envelopes

meetthemeese
Nov 8, 2022
2 min read

Updated: Nov 10, 2022

[This is the first of the posts in a series that'll be about making quick, small journal accessories and paraphernalia to tack on or clip on to your journal - journal tags, envelopes and more]

Going off the letter-holder / journal insert tutorial, we can turn that pattern into mini-tags and envelopes too! Perfect for attaching to a scrapbook or journal.

2 mini tags on two letter holders — low-res reproduction of a Can You Spot It? image

The Materials

You'll need:

1 square(d) small sheet of paper or scrap, glue and scissors.

3x3 inch paper piece — Glue and scissors not in picture because I forgot to put them in it.

Again, this can be scraps of double sided patterned paper or single. I'm using double-sided paper.

This paper doesn't necessarily have to be stiff, because it won't be used for holding anything so much as it will for decorating our journals/notebooks.

The Steps

Step 1.

Fold the square of paper exactly halfway and crease lightly. (We won't be attaching any extra flap here, unlike with the letter-holder).

Square sheet of paper creased down the centre — Faint red dotted line marks the crease for reference

Step 2.

On the left flap, cut away the top half as a square and keep the paper aside.

Next, fold up the whole bottom edge by approx. 1cm, and crease.

On this fold, cut away the part that lies on the right flap only.

In the picture below, the faint lines indicate the creases, while the bright lines indicate the cut parts.

Cut and crease lines marked on the paper — Pictures are indeed better than words

Step 3.

This is what the piece should look like now. You can snip away the corners of the remaining bottom fold to make it easier to stick.

Final cutout — Crease lines marked for reference.

Next, fold the remaining portion of the bottom fold back up, fold the whole piece along the vertical crease we have, and glue the left flap to the right one along the bottom edge only.

I've cut out a second piece as above, and added some trims to make an envelope (not tag) out of. I was messing around with the sheet quite a bit before settling for this design so the top flap got creased quite badly, but you can avoid the mess!

The idea is to glue the left flap as with the first piece to make a pocket, but then fold the top flap into the pocket for an envelope (while for the tag, we leave the top flap as is).

And we're done!

Final Steps - Design + Using up the cut out bits

All we need to do is further spruce up the tags - round the corners, add some pictures or ink, whatever comes to mind!

You can use the little squares we'd cut out in the beginning as small notecards or labels too! They'll fit right in inside these tag envelopes, but you can use them separately as well.