Lydia & Caul: Custom Envelope Liners {DIY Tutorial}

Hey everyone!

I'm back with the last feature from Lydia & Caul's wedding and it's a great DIY Tutorial for you! Custom Envelope Liners. Custom liners set an amazing tone for your guests as soon as they open that invitation. Lydia & Caul's guests absolutely loved them and made it a point to tell our sweet bride.

Let me start at the beginning. This beautiful Great Gatsby book cover was one of our main inspirations for the wedding design from the start...

Lydia found this gorgeous glitter embellished wrapping paper that mimicked the look of the book cover, so we decided to put it to work!

I personally hand lined each inner envelope for Lydia & Caul's invitations using this gorgeous paper. Now, this takes time {LOTS of time}, but it is completely worth it!

Here's what you'll need to get started:
-Liner Paper of your Choice
-Sharp Exacto Knife {with extra blades}
-LOTS of Double Sided Tape {I think I went through 10 rolls for 250 envelopes}
-Surface for Cutting {I used a plastic cutting board made for crafting from Hobby Lobby}
-Pen or Pencil
-1 envelope to sacrifice as your template.


Now here's what you'll do, step by step:

Step 1: Take your sacrificial envelope and open up the folds completely. Then cut the side flaps and the bottom few inches off to give you a perfect liner template that will fit inside your envelopes. Test it inside another envelope to be sure it fits correctly and that you haven't cut off too much before going any further.

Step 2: Trace template on liner paper.

**Note: If you are working with a geometric pattern that needs to be centered {as we were} you'll need to line it up purposefully with each tracing or it will look messy.

Step 3: Begin to carefully cut out each individual liner using your Exacto Knife.
**Note: As the blade dulls and cutting becomes more difficult, you'll need to change blades. I changed blades twice during this process.

Step 4: Turn liner over and apply a strip of double sided tape along each side of the peak. Then carefully tuck into the envelope and press down firmly to secure.

Step 5: Repeat 249 more times! {or until you finish all of your invitations} Probably stopping to buy more double sided tape & massage your sore hands along the way. But when you're done, you'll have a gorgeous finished product that your guests will adore!

And here is the full invitation suite! The gorgeous hand calligraphy invitations from Shindig Paperie are complimented perfectly by the custom envelope liner.

And remember, don't let the extra paper go to waste! For Lydia & Caul's wedding we used it to add detail to the place cards for the head table, food labels, and reserved signs...

A big thanks to Benfield Photography for capturing these paper details for us!

Best of luck in your DIYing!