Pocket Letters

Hello Sassy friends!

I'm sure you've caught a glimpse of the craze that seems to be sweeping the scrappy and pen pal community at the moment, in the form of Pocket Letters. I've admired them for a while and thought I'd give one a go, using Simple Stories 'Say Cheese II' and 'I am'. 

The idea was developed by Janette Lane as a new way to send letters. The pockets can be filled with pretty much whatever takes your fancy, like stickers, tea bags, washi and so on. Once the letter is complete, you can fold it up and pop it in an envelope. What a fun way to receive correspondence!

 

The letters are created using a 9 Pocket Trading Card Protector. I reckon this could be the equivalent of an 8.5 x 11 protector sleeve. I didn't have one of these to hand, so I trimmed down a 12x12 sleeve and used my WRMK Fuse Tool to create the pockets. (If I was going to do this on a regular basis though, it would probably be worth investing in the proper sized pocket sleeves.)

I measured the pocket sizes by cutting cards from patterned paper down to 2.5 x 3.5 inches and then running the Fuse down the length and breadth of the sleeve at intervals. This created the 9 pocket page.

 

I then used the cutting attachment for the Fuse tool to create the slits in the pockets, so I could tuck my bits and pieces inside. The little video below shows how this attachment is used.

A few things I've learned whilst using the Fuse

• Be sure to give it adequate time to heat up. It needs to be hot enough to melt and fuse the plastic, otherwise it will just drag over the sleeve and or the pocket will open when pressure is applied to the fused line.

• You don't have to only use the ruler supplied in the pack, you can use an ordinary metal ruler. Likewise, you can use any protector sleeve brand, not just the WRMK ones.

• If you need to use the cutting attachment (or visa versa) I used a small pair of pliers to lightly grip and twist off the roller fuse attachment while it was hot. Again, allow time for the new attachment to heat up when changing the head. Similarly, I found while fusing all of these pockets, that the tool needed a little bit of downtime to reheat between repeated use, to give a good seal line.

I created a small envelope for my letters with my WRMK Envelope Board. If you would like to create one yourself, I used a 12,5cm square paper and first guide punch at 5.5cm.

 The next letter an encouragement letter rather than swap letter, for someone close to my heart.

The little envelopes serve as a cute place to stash my written letters.

I'm sure you'll agree that it could be a very fun way to keep in touch. For more information on pocket letters, you can head to Janette Lane's blog or search #pocketletter for loads of inspiration. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Chantalle

Make one yourself using these items from the Sassy Store: