the homefront blog

We recently received an amazing donation from Envelopments, Inc! (we waited until now only so we had a few more samples to show you before posting photos!) Many thanks to Patrick Chen, Brand Manager at Envelopments, who coordinated this fabulous donation for us! We’ll be posting more about the company and their heart for what we do in a coming blog post - you won’t want to miss that!

We have some of these Envelopments to share, so please read through at the end to see what you can request and how it will work.

Signature Pocket Fold cards
These Signature Pocket Fold Cards come in a variety of sizes and orientations. They’re approximately 5″ x 7″ folded, and outer envelopes were generously provided for each one. This first style has a pocket that holds a note to the recipient, and we were given approx 200 of these in a Christmas-type red color.

Here’s a sample of one made using Rusty Pickle vellum donated last holiday season, a sentiment from Hero Arts, and a decorated note in the pocket that matches the center panel design.

Next on our ‘runway’ is a slightly different style with another pocket orientation. We have approximately 200 of this burgundy color (close to the Christmas red, but slightly more purple), and 100 of the lovely tan pearlized ones:

This sample patriotic card takes advantage of the burgundy in the patterned paper by Paper Pizzazz; the paper continues behind everything as a liner to the pocket as well. The Marine sentiment stamp is by Paper Inspirations (purchased at Agape Gifts), stars are punched out, and the paper in the pocket for the sentiment is designed to match the rest of the piece. The metal adhesive stars are by Colorbok.

This next card was designed specifically for a soldier with a birthday coming up - complete with a pocket to hold balloons for him! (Manufacturer details are lost on me at the moment, sorry!)

Next is another orientation of the pocket cards: this time the card opens long and vertically! We have 145 left in a light blue shimmery color, and 115 in this luscious purple:

This sample card is for a hero’s Mom! This card can easily be a tall, vertical style, or horizontal, as you see here. The MOM letters are by Heidi Grace from a fantastic donation by Fiskars; these Envelopments are large enough cards that these monogram punch-out letters work well! Flowers are from Prima. (The lace and ribbon on the insert card as well as the little Love tag are of unknown origin!)

Portable Pockets
The Portable Pocket Cards are a much simpler style of card; they are a simple pocket into which a folded or single layer card can fit. These also fit into a larger outer envelope for mailing. We have 130 left in the mustard yellow color; 200 of the holly (they’re going fast, so please don’t get your heart set on getting many!); and 124 of the cream pearlized color.

Our first sample card for this style goes with the holly pocket (sorry, I couldn’t resist, Polly!). The card portion with the House Mouse image on it is a folded piece of cardstock, adhered to the 5x7 cardstock. The envelope is so lovely on its own, it needs no decoration!

This halloween card uses some more donated paper from Heidi Grace/Fiskars, and a simple diecut with patterned paper and a stamped image adorn the envelope. (The stamped image and sentiment are gifted and I don’t remember who they’re by!)

Metallic gold envelopesnts also donated these Metallic Envelopes and they are a super-special treat for the holiday season! We have hundreds and hundreds of these - you can help by making 4″ x 9″ cards to go inside them and sending them to any of our shippers!

We have some other styles donated to us as well, and are in the process of making some samples to show you in those styles too. Stay tuned!

Note to our AnySoldier “Support Junkies"!
You know who you are! These cards are fantastic to use for writing letters to your deployed hero contacts. The pockets can hold those cartoons you save, all the little goodies you like to tuck in! If you would like some, please email Sandy with which style you prefer, how many you think you’d like, and whether or not you want the outer envelopes; if you’ll tuck this into a box, the envelopment itself can act as the envelope, but we’ll happily send an envelope if you need one. Note that the Portable Pockets will be easiest for our heroes to write home on, so if you’re able to use the fold-out-style Signature pocket cards instead, that will be fantastic!

Note to our Cardmakers!
First, an important note: These cards do NOT have to urgently be used before Christmas, aside from the holly envelopments. So please continue whatever cardmaking plans you’ve had for the holidays, and continue sending cards to all shippers…this post isn’t meant to distract us all from keeping first things first, nor to drown Sandy during this busy season! But if making this style of card inspires you, read on!

On to the plan for sharing the goodies: these cards are quite large and bulky, and made of fanTASTic heavy cardstock, so we don’t want to use up our shipping budget on shipping them all out to be adorned, nor all your budget to return them! So we have an idea to try, let’s see if this will work:

1. Email Sandy to request the exact sizes for the panels for the cards you’d like to work on; she has the majority of the boxes. Please indicate which card style you’re looking at (you can describe the sample card if that’s easier!)
2. If you would like to pay the mailing cost to receive any samples, that can be arrangedt; it can either be the whole card or color swatches of the cardstock. Shipping cost will vary depending on what you’re asking for.
3. Create the insert and ‘card front’ for a panel, and send just those portions to Sandy and she’ll attach them to the cards.
4. If more card panels or inserts are sent in than are needed for available Envelopments, they’ll be made into regular 5x7 cards. But please be sure to email to find out what’s needed so we can use these as efficiently as we can. Thanks!

These will be sent out on a first-come, first-served basis…note that at the time of this writing, rumors of the availability of these cards is out (see the blog post here), so emails are coming in, especially for the holly pockets. I have to check email, half may well be claimed already!