Post Office Requirements

I've decided to add the US post office requirements for 1st class envelopes to my blog where I can find them!  (I just spent WAY too long searching the USPS site for this information.)  Since I make my own envelopes and card bases at times, I want to remember the ratio required to be classed as "rectangular".  And for pricing, I need to remember other things on this list.  SO, as of their web-site on 3/25/2017:

Standard Sized Envelopes

Envelopes must be rectangular to qualify for letter prices.  This means that the aspect ratio of the envelope (length divided by height) is at least 1.3 and not more than 2.5.

Size Requirements

	Minimum	Maximum
Height	3 1/2"	6 1/8"
Length	5"	11 1/2"
Thickness	0.007"	1/4"
Weight	None	N/A

Non-Standard Sized Mail - like square or vertical envelopes, lumpy or rigid envelopes, or mail with clasps, string, or buttons, cannot use their automated processing machines. Hand-cancelled mail is charged a non-machineable surcharge - equivalent to the price for mailing an extra ounce.

I've used these measurements to create a table for my own use.  

I make NO GUARANTEES that I did the math correctly, or that the numbers here represent current post office requirements.  I'm simply posting it here for your use, but strongly encourage you to double-check my math (rounded to 1/8" increments) and the current post office regulations for yourself!

 

NOTE that standard envelopes MUST be no more than 1/4" thick - between 1/4" and 3/4" must go as a "large envelope".  I recommend making yourself a template that has a 1/4" slot and a 3/4" slot to test your envelopes!!! 

Also note that if it weighs exactly one ounce on your scales, you better add postage for an extra ounce!  The post office will charge your recipient much more than that if they deem it overweight!

 

You may also be interested in this *.pdf of additional mailing hints that I came across - put together by TheMadStamper.  The postage rates are out of date, but much of the other information is still useful.  Here's a link to her blog post with a couple of useful videos about mailing our hand made cards.

Rectangle Requirements for U.S. Post Office

Envelope size (approximate card size)

HEIGHT	APROX. MIN. LENGTH	APPROX. MAX. LENGTH
3 ½”  (3 ¼”)	5” (4 ¾”)	8 ¾” (8 ½”)
3 ¾”  (3 ½”)	5” (4 ¾”)	9 3/8” (9 1/8”)
4” (3 ¾”)	5 ¼” (5”)	10” (9 ¾”)
4 ¼” (4”)	5 3/4” (5 ½”)	10 ½” (10 ¼”)
4 ½” (4 ¼”)	5 7/8”  (5 5/8”)	11 ¼” (11”)
4 ¾” (4 ½”)	6 1/4” (6”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
5” (4 ¾”)	6 ½” (6 ¼”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
5 ¼” (5”)	6 7/8” (6 5/8”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
5 ½” (5 ¼”)	7 ¼” (7”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
5 ¾” (5 ½”)	7 3/8” (7 1/8”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
6” (5 ¾”)	7 ¾” (7 ½”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)
6 1/8” (5 7/8”)	7 7/8” (7 5/8”)	11 ½” (11 ¼”)

 

Red & Black Purse

I enjoyed making that Hunkydory Clutch Bag so much that I just had to make another!  This "purse" started as a plain piece of 6" x 12" red card stock (laid horizontally and scored at 2", 6", 7", & 8" and then trimmed at the 11 3/4" line).  The idea came from the Paper Wishes Message Board. 

OUTSIDE:

• Background - I covered the main outside area with some HOTP specialty paper called "Peacock Red".  In real life it looks like tooled leather - very pretty.  
• Clasp & Catch - The clasp & catch were cut from black Mirri card stock using a HOT die for the catch (from 9 Tiny Tags & Little Labels) & a Sizzix die for the clasp (from "Bonjour Paris").  I then embossed them both with a Darice embossing folder ("Damask").  The clasp is attached with a brad (mostly because the die cuts a small hole there!) & double-stick tape.  The catch is attached with double-sided foam tape.  

At this point the clutch looked like this:

• Finishing Touches - I really wanted it to look more like a purse, so I added fine line border Dazzles (HOTP) for faux stitching, and some 1/8" satin ribbon for the "strap".  You see the result in the first picture.

 INSIDE:

• Background paper: The patterned paper on the inside is also HOTP - from an old paper pack called "Cardmaker's Classic Creative Pack.  

• Message Area: The center piece was cut using a die from Spellbinder's Decorative Labels Eight and matted with black paper.  The flowers are ones purchased from Paper Wishes - I layered several on top of each other (they no longer carry these).  The leaves were cut from plain green paper with my Silhouette. I'm not sure the occasion for which I'll use this card, so haven't added a sentiment yet.

Hunkydory Clutch Bag

This card was inspired by a post on the Paper Wishes Message Board - here.  It's hard to tell in the picture since I didn't get an angle showing the side, but this card is designed as a clutch purse.  I think it's really pretty, but it didn't look as much like a clutch as I wanted - wish I had embossed the part of the card base that serves as the lower edge of the card front.  For the final product I decided to take the greeting off the front and move it to the inside (opposite corner from the tulip).  This made it look much more like a clutch from the outside.  Here's the inside:

The card base was cut from a piece of metallic silver poster board that was white on the other side.  I used card stock and die cuts from Floral Shimmer Hunkydory card kit to decorate this card.  Here's a closeup of the area I left for writing a message.

Fixing a Major Mistake

I don't usually pay much attention to the suggested card layouts that come in the Hunkydory kits, but one in particular caught my eye this time because the fold was very unique (Floral Shimmer kit).  It looked reasonably easy to reproduce, so I decided to try it.  I found a nice piece of printed card stock in the kit and scored and cut it as the picture showed.  It came out beautifully and the basic card looked just like what was shown in the picture.  

There was only one problem.   There was no way to fold it flat to go in an envelope for mailing!!!!  I'm sure their original handled that some way, but I couldn't figure it out.  And here I had scored and cut one of those beautiful pieces of card stock in a way that didn't work!  I sure didn't want to waste it.  SO, I tried to figure out how I might re-fold it in a way that hid the fact that I had originally planned something different.  This card was the result.  

I have no idea what to call it, but it looks quite nice in real life.  The element in the center is a spinner.  It's created by gluing small card stock strips  on the inside of the upper and lower "marquees".  They are folded in the center and then have little tabs at the ends for gluing to the card base.  I looped a piece of invisible thread over the center fold of the small strip at the top and then tied it over the bottom one.  Then I simply glued front and back spinner pieces back to back with the thread firmly sandwiched between them.  This is wound up before closing the card so that when the card is open it will spin.  Here are closeups of the two sides of the spinner:

And here's another angle picturing the whole card.

4 Quick & Easy Hunkydory Cards

I've been running low on all occasion cards and have a long list of people I want to send cards to, so decided to use a kit to make some quick cards using the Floral Shimmer card kit from Hunkydory. 

The first card (above) is an interlocking gate fold card.  These cards are SO quick and easy to make with Hunkydory kits because they usually have die cut focals that are nested within several frames - that all come apart.  That makes it easy to pick a focal with a frame that's slightly larger than it, but the same shape.  I use these for the "interlocking" part - gluing the focal only to the left side of the gate fold and the frame only to the right.  For this particular card I added a sentiment piece - also glued only to the left.

This particular kit was designed to make a set of note cards and a little holder for them.   I didn't have a need for that, so took the note card bases and did my own thing.  Above is a sympathy card, below is a "thinking of you" card.

For the 4th card, I wanted to use a coordinating printed card stock piece.  I ended up making a long sideways card from it.  The outside has a bit of velvet glittery ribbon and a die cut.  

The inside is another piece of the paper with another piece of ribbon - no die cut.

Challenges with Hunkydory Cards

For the last several days I've been showcasing some of the gorgeous cards that can be made with Hunkydory Kits.  Today I'm back with a couple more cards from the "Flight of the Butterflies Jeweled Edition".   (No, they don't compensate me for showing their products - sure wish they would! 😀)

Over the last few days, I've shown several of the "pre-fab" cards that came in the kit, and these are two more. This time, though the card bases are BEAUTIFUL, I had some trouble with the embellishments that came with them.  They were clearly designed to make themed cards - themes for which I had no use!  I couldn't stand the thought of these gorgeous cards going to waste, but what could I do?  These two cards are the results.

For the purple one, above (made like the one described here), I once again added a metallic ribbon instead of what came in the kit.  I needed a birthday card for someone who likes purple, so thought this could fit the bill nicely.  I ditched the embellishments with the wrong theme, went through the "Essential Book of Pearl Sentiments", and found a birthday sentiment in purple with gold foil which matched very nicely (unfortunately in the picture, the blue surface it is sitting on reflects back on the sentiment to change the color from it's true hue).  Anyway, that sentiment quickly turned this card into the theme I needed!

I went ahead and also put the last of these vellum strip cards together.  This picture shows the inside of the card - which I don't think I've shown on the other cards of this style. 

This card is another whose theme isn't one I'm likely to need any time soon.  Not knowing for sure which theme will be needed next, I embellished the card with a couple of coordinating butterfly die cuts and left a place for a sentiment near the one in the upper right corner.  When the time comes, I figure I can finish it either with something from the Pearl Sentiments book OR make something myself and heat emboss it with gold embossing powder. Either way, I'll have a gorgeous card ready to go in very little time.

Christmas in Feb/March part 11

This is the last of my cards I made from the "Cute Christmas" set from Hunkydory.  I got 5 cards out of this last set of die cuts with coordinating card stock, bringing me to a grand total of 51 cards from this set that was to make "at least 20".  Not bad, right?

This first card was actually one of the last I made.  I had 1 snowman die cut left, and the sentiment banner.  I also had a bit of coordinating card stock.  I used some scraps of card stock to mat the focal die cut, then matted that with silver glitzy card stock (DCWV).  I added the sentiment with foam tape & finished the look with a border top & bottom (cut from the coordinating card stock).  

For the inside, scraps of coordinating card stock are paired with outline stickers to create borders.  The sentiment came from the 2016 Christmas Sentiments set.

The next card is a gate fold card.  You can see that the coordinating card stock used for the background has more of the border I used for the card above.  It uses the largest die cut from the kit.  I added a sentiment from 2016 Christmas Sentiments.  Of course, the focal is just glued to the left side. 

The inside has more of the coordinating card stock, along with a sentiment die cut piece from the kit.  Silver border stickers finish the side edges of the inside of this card.

Next up is background & focal in one - cut from one of the coordinating card stock sheets.   I added a sticker border (Dazzles) and a sentiment from 2016 Christmas Sentiments (added with foam tape.

Another piece of the card stock (with more border stickers) forms a border on the inside of the card.  Another sentiment piece finishes it off.

The fourth card in this set uses the rest of the card stock sheet.  I added a red striped border (included in the kit) top and bottom.  The focal is another die cut from the set - as is the tag & little bow I added to the top left corner.

For the inside, I used scraps from around the red striped border die cut to create borders.  I added another sentiment that was matted with scraps of coordinating card stock.

The last card is an easel card.  It uses the last die cut from the kit along with border die cuts and bow - also from the kit, and a couple more sentiments from 2016 Christmas Sentiments.  I folded the card front in half attached a piece of coordinating card stock to just the bottom half, then ran a border along the folded edge of the card front (actually pieced after attaching the focal - also just to the lower half of the card to form the easel).  As you can see, I added a sentiment to the focal - along with a small bit of the border cut to look like a ribbon.

On the inside, I raised the green border strip with foam tape to hold the easel part in place.  I added another scrap from the die-cut sheet to make a second border below this.  There's a larger border of this card stock on the upper part of the inside panel, but of course you can't see that when the card is sitting as an easel.  Near the bottom border I added a sentiment tag with some coordinating ribbon to complete the card.

So there you have 51 cards from this single kit and some stuff from my stash.  Not bad!  And I've gotten a very good start on my Christmas cards for this year!