Pocket Letter by Ingrid Kristina V

Hello everyone!

Ingrid back with the last guest design post. I thought long and hard about what I was going to make for my final post and figured that you might be totally Christmas-ed out so I decided to create a pocket letter. Many of you probably heard of pocket letters, but it might be something new to you.

For those who are not familiar with the subject, pocket letters are a form of a happy mail. You’d send a pocket letter to your crafting buddy. The idea is to create little pockets in which you can include your letter or a note to your friend and fill other pockets with little goodies like fun clips, buttons, washi, sequins, die cuts, ribbon, stickers and anything else you want to your friend to have. I think it is a wonderful way of letting your crafty friend enjoy some of your craft stash and play with things they might not have.

There are a few ways of creating pocket letters. You can combine and decorate envelopes and make an envelope flip book, you can take a sheet protector for collectors’ cards and fill those or you can make your own, like you will see me today. It is up to you to decide what is best for you and there is not a right or wrong way in this case. You can even create and decorate your own sheet of A4 card and cut it up into small ATCs to fill the pockets with, if you don’t have or don’t want to use ready-made project life cards like I did.

I wanted to focus on showing you how to use the We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool with some of their other products, in case you find this a fun way to exchange little treasures with your friends and want to try it.

Here’s a little step-by-step for you…

Step 1: Prepare your Clear Sheets (12 x 12”), the Fusible Pattern paper and pre-heat the Fuse Tool. You can buy a mat for it (don’t use the fuse tool on your craft mat as you can say goodbye to it afterwards). I use a piece of a chipboard that came with my flat-packed furniture to put under the sheets to fuse it. It works great!

Step 2: Take a selection of Project Life cards and select your favourites. I chose a few in similar colours and tones that I thought went well together. Also, keeping in mind it will be a pocket letter for my friend, I selected a few cards with fun messages on them. If you don’t have such cards, you can stamp or write on them, add stickers…

Step 3: Secure the two clear sheets on top of each other with a washi tape and use the ruler to guide you when fusing. It is a good idea to move the fuse tool fairly slowly to give it time to do its job. If you do it too fast, the sheets can come apart, if you do it too slowly, you will make a hole in the sheets. You can practice on a small piece first to get a hang of it.

Step 4: I measured the size of my card by placing it on top, then use the ruler to fuse. You will also need to make slits for your pockets. Place the chipboard in between the sheets, then cut so that you only cut through the top sheet, remove, then make another pocket and so on until your entire layout is done.

Step 5: I decided to alternate the cards horizontally and vertically and to create extra small pockets for sequins and beads.

Step 6: In the end I added a few stickers, created my little banner embellishment with sequins and added a few bits and bobs. I also added some word stickers. I’m ready to fill the front and back of the pockets with goodies for my friend and to write my special note. Once done, simply fold, pack and post! The pink paper behind the pocket is only for the photography purposes so that you can see it better.

I even made a little butterfly clip using pattern paper, a die cut word, the fuse sheets with the tool and some chunky glitter. You can use the clip to hold it all together once folded. It is a lovely embellishment for any diary too. I will have a separate tutorial on my youtube channel to show you how you can make these pretty butterflies.

So I hope you enjoyed today’s post! Feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Thank you and have a wonderful time over the festive period. Lots of love,

Ingrid xxx

Supplies List:

We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool Kit

We R Memory Keepers Clear Sheets (alternatively use ready-made Sleeves)

Project Life cards (alternatively use ATCs)

Tim Holtz, Idea-logy Chit Chat Stickers

Washi Tape

…. a few sticker embellishments from my stash…