 Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching my tutorial today. I'm going to be showing you how to make this fun advent pocket letter. So I think it was about maybe three months ago now I made a pocket letter. These are something that's been going for many many years and it's just evolved from pen paling which I used to do you know as a child and basically you just send gifts you know crafty gifts or just any kind of gifts to your pen pals and they've just become a bigger thing now so they are pocket letters. So people will you know have little plastic sleeves with pockets in them and you can have you know whatever you want in them so people if it's crafty kind of pocket letters then they have ribbons and embellishments and things like that inside of them you know others will send gift cards and just all sorts I mean I've seen ones that just had scratch cards in all of the different pockets or they've had just nice little messages so that people can you know open each pocket and there'd be a nice little note for that person. So there are hundreds and hundreds of variations of pocket letters but I like to obviously do things that everybody can do so you don't need to go out and buy the plastic wallets this is all done using cardstock so I will link up here the one that I done which is just the nine what was it three six nine I think it was the nine pocket pocket letter. This is an advent one so I've done 24 now you can you can add the 25th but we've never had one on Christmas days children our advent have already always been 24 days so it's entirely up to you if you want to have one with the 25th on but this one is just 24 so it's this long kind of I guess wrap you know it's like a little pouch and I've got these really nice little kind of snow globe charms hanging all the paper is from jolly holidays at first edition paper pack which I'll show you in a minute but how cool are they and that's the same paper here I've got this little merry christmas tag with some ribbon these huge bells which I absolutely love with this baker's twine here and then basically just open it up so the idea is is that you can post this obviously it's a long length but it's it's it's postable other pocket letters the clear ones they fold kind of like this and then you can fold them in half against you can fold them down even more but they are bulky they're not supposed to not be so don't you know look at this and think oh well it's too thick that is how they're meant to be okay so you open it up and you've just got your page here now this is where you could have your 25th okay so you could add another pocket another envelope here now you open it up open it up and open it up so there are 12 pockets on this side here and then if I flip it over there are 12 on this side now I've just got to finish this one here but I'll do that as I'm making the other one because I'd run out and it is so fun now I also on this one I haven't put numbers on so I haven't got one to 24 I just left it so that person can just open whatever one they want now I've still got a few more to fill but if I just open some of them up to give you an idea of what's inside so you generally want to put in things that are flat that aren't going to create too much bulk so in this one here here we go I've got all those lovely butterflies so those plastic butterflies that I always use on a lot of my 3d paper crafts my gift boxes and gift bags I've popped those in there now they do need to go in a little plastic um kind of pouch so I will sort that out again later then this one here I've got these little wood veneers so these are happy and birthday so again they're both in there put that one back um this one I've got some other little wood veneers these are nice little these kind of like russian dolls you can see there um what's this one here some bunting I think this is again I'm waiting for the little plastic um envelopes to come uh oh yeah little bunting there's lots of them in there so there's that one all without pro dots this has got rib and bows you see them all in there's about eight or nine in there I did put quite a few um this has got lots of little light infamera so little cutouts yay let's celebrate let's fiesta all those in there so it is it's just it's waste to just send nice little swaps to your crafty friends or like I said if you've got family and you want to do this you can put a gift card in them and you could put you know like I said a little scratch card in them you could put a five pound note in you know different ones it's entirely up to you there are so many ways that's just a nice little card message card I've got some embellishments in that one there some enamel embellishments so yeah you can see you get the idea so for those of you that have never done this before this is my paper version of a pocket letter but if you type in pocket letters um you will see and there's lots of pocket like a pocket letter swap groups on facebook which I'm a member of as well so they're always nice if you want to you know it's a nice way to make friends just like pen powling so it's really really fun and I do love doing it but this is what we're going to make so it's very very straightforward and the back obviously just rolls around and then that all seals up I've changed the scoring on the one I'm going to show you just to allow for that bulk a little bit more but I just think it's really really lovely so this is the paper pack so there we go jolly holidays which you've seen lots and lots of times let me just pop that over there okay let's pop that to one side right so I've already gone ahead and done a lot of the envelopes because you don't need to watch me fold 24 envelopes so I've already done 23 of them I believe and I've already matted them all on the white cardstock put the velcro dots on them it's all ready to go and I will stick them all down in a moment so just pop them all to one that's my topper for the last one so this is this is mine is like a metallized paper it's very very thin mirrored paper now I did get this in a shop in China and I did share a picture a couple of weeks ago of the shop that I get this from so unfortunately it's unbranded I can't tell you where you would get this but any nice paper to make your envelopes will work and what you could also do is do your envelopes in white and then cut some triangles of gold or something and stick on the top there right on that top kind of one and decorate them that way but you are going to need 24 pieces that are five and a quarter five and a quarter square okay so that's for your envelopes then to make the actual pocket letter itself let's get rid of that piece there don't need that okay so you need a piece of 12 by 12 all right so that's going to be our main one two three six nine 12 18 yeah that's 18 and then this gives you 19 20 21 22 23 24 so one piece of 12 by 12 and then this piece here is five by 12 I've got different colors and non-traditional Christmas but because of these papers here from the pack they've got all those colors in and it just matches perfectly but these are to decorate this is your kind of front your flap the the closure as such this is three and a half by 12 so two pieces of whatever pattern paper you want and then this piece here is a piece of three and a half by 12 and this is just going to stick on the top and kind of disguise where we're joining the um pocket letter because it's going to actually join I get it right like so okay like that okay you want to score at three eighths of an inch okay seven eighths of an inch four and three eighths of an inch four and three quarters of an inch eight and a quarter of an inch and eight and a half inches okay then rotate the card stock and you want to score at four and eight okay then grab that piece that is five by 12 and you're going to score at five eighths of an inch and one and three eighths of an inch and then again rotate your card stock and you're going to score at four and eight okay then with that other piece which is the three and a half by 12 you just want to score along the 12 inch side at four and eight okay now these score lines at four and eight that I've done on all of the pieces they're not we're not going to burnish them they're not actually going to be folds they're just they're really decoratively to just kind of show where each of these are so once you make it you may decide you actually don't want to do those score lines but once it all comes together you'll see what I mean and you can obviously make your mind up if that's what you want to do and what you want to do is burnish all of the lines so you've got your you that's the four and the eight and then pop it back that way where you've got all of these other little score lines that's the right way up you don't want to score like I said you don't want to burnish sorry the four and the eight so all you're going to do is burnish all of these score lines here so I'm just going to fold all of those okay so that's that piece and then on that five by 12 piece again just do the long score lines not the like I said the short four and eight and then that piece there we're not going to burnish anything because we just want to keep those lines as they are okay next what we're going to do so you will have this piece with those two score lines there the plain side is the side we're going to be sticking down here so on this left hand side the far right you should have plain it's the left hand side where you've got these score lines the very first one this one here is where we're going to stick that one over like so now you can stick it on the top actually yeah you want to stick it over that one because I just remembered that one is then going to go over the top to conceal it okay so you get a perfect join so I'm just going to add some of my wet glue okay so just put the glue along that the smallest of those tabs that score line and then just line that score line up with the edge of this pink card so I'm just going to flip that over make sure I get that nice lined up it should be completely flush with the top and the bottom because it's 12 inches if it's a little bit out for some reason that is but they're all from the same pack I can just trim that although the pattern paper that goes over the top will probably disguise it anyway I just want to make sure we've got a really nice join like so and then this pink piece like I said is going to go over the top and it will you've got the two score lines here it will sit within that second score line so this one here and then join up to that green score line there so you're basically hiding this is your tab on the green there you're hiding that so it just gives you a really nice finish like so I was just looking at ways to really I wanted to try and get 24 squares without obviously having to use tons and tons of cardstock so yeah this was this is my way of doing it and like I said once you've done it and you've seen my other one you may want to just do a 12 pocket 12 day so like the 12 days of advent then use my other one that I've done because it's a you know it's a really nice idea but an advent pocket letter I thought is a perfect way to send nice little gifts at Christmas time to your crafty friends but also those family members that you may not see um yeah I just think it's it's nice it's unexpected so there we go and then again just twist that around and just sit that perfectly over this okay so now what's going to happen is this side here folds then folds and you'll see each of these so this is three eighths of an inch this is then four uh quarter that's a half and that's five eighths and then that is three quarters so that each one can then hold more bulk as it goes so then that very last one you'll see at the moment because there's nothing in it but you've got a nice that's basically your spine that side there so now with this flip it over this pink outer piece here this is your tab you're now going to stick these pieces so one piece is going to go over the top like so all right so I'm going to run my glue all down this one here okay and then just sit that one over the top again just lining it up with the score lines and then you'll know it's all nice and straight and again because it's all 12 inches long it should all be the same I've got way too much glue there like so and then flip it over and then the other piece is going to go on that side and again just perfectly line it up with that score line just like you did with the green and it just conceals everything so now you just got this perfect continued continued piece of cardstock and you shouldn't be able to see any join so add the glue onto this piece all that it's entitled to you I'm going to do it on this one okay so now when you turn that over so again that will go in in in and then over and I just think that feels so much better than this one where I didn't have such a large spine there can you see the difference on the side I still like this one it's still got a really nice feel to it it feels a bit like a junk journal trouble is notebook kind of feel to it um this one here I just think is going to allow now for that kind of bulk so I'm going to round my corners here just on that top piece like so so just think again that just it's just nice and if you're going to be posting it it just it will you know it's less likely to damage your edges okay so they are now all ready to fill with these envelopes so you can see now every single one of these is just going to fill and how fun do they look now I fussy cut all these pieces from again one of the paper packs which you've seen me do with a lot of the jolly holiday um papers because they are just so fun for that and I've already put all the velcro on these but you can see there so these are like I said I'm so glad I sat down put a movie on and just went and folded and cut all of my envelopes but that's how it's going to look and I just think that is lovely for someone to open and just have all these pockets but by all means you know go ahead and put numbers on them if you would prefer but I'm not going to I'm just going to leave them as they are because you know this can continue past Christmas it can be for the whole month of December for example so it's just a nice little way to send gifts that was more of my intention with it so to make these like I said you need a piece of a piece of five and a quarter by five and a quarter just check that was right yeah and then what you want to do is um you're going to use your envelope punch board and you want to score it two and three eighths of an inch so pop in your card and then go along here to two and three eighths of an inch which is just there punch and score and then I like to rotate it all the way around and punch again I find I get more a better envelope and then you just do them as normal now for anybody that hasn't got the envelope punch board or you don't know how this really works I will link up now a little um to the video that I've done on how to make envelopes with the envelope punch board so now you will then end up having something that resembles this final result here so you can see my one there now obviously you're going to do that 24 or even 25 times I only now need to do one more which is nice and then you just fold in all of your side pieces here and then I'm just going to use a bit of my red tape take off the backing and fold that over and there is your envelope now I think my envelope punch board's quite old now I think the um the punch part is I think I need to run some aluminium foil through and just sharpen it but there we go so there's your little envelope then I've got some of my velcro dots here put that on the inside fold it down make sure it sticks perfectly like so and then I've already got this one prepared so all I've done is this is just a two inch punch I just circled um punched a load of circles out and then I've just laid on top this little snowflake die which I've done throughout all of them and then different parts from the paper packs this one's just a Christmas a Christmas a Christmas wish now I've had all my envelopes portrait and opening out to the right hand side again it's entirely up to you so I want that to be this way up because that's how it's going to stick in so I'm just going to add again I'm going to use the red tape because this is kind of a you know a foiled um paper I'm just worried the glue wouldn't really stick so I'm just going to pop a little bit of red tape like so and then I can just position that over the top and then that will now always open up with a little envelope now the white cardstock that this is all on is a piece of three and a quarter by three and three quarters okay so again you'll need 24 pieces of that I need to cut one actually I seem to have lost I think that's why I had that spare card stop there so I'm going to cut a piece out stick that on top and then stick them all over the 24 squares like so if you want the 25th then you can add an extra one in here on your side panel so I'm going to go and get them all stuck down okay so I've just been getting all the other bits ready so I'll just show you them all stuck down so now you will see when it folds out look at that it looks so good with that gold and the pink really really cute and then if I just flip it over there is the other side how cool is that I love this and it's just it does work so much better having that quarter inch and then three eighths and then five eighths I think then three quarters whatever it was anyway but it does it just really now allows you know you to have all those bits and pieces in there so next it's just down to decoration so I'm going to do a whole punch along here in the middle so I'm just going to line this up so I'm going to come in about half an inch and I'm in the center like so and then I want to do it on the spine as well so I'm going to come down as far as it will no actually I don't want to go down that in the middle but come down again it's about yeah about half an inch again I've come down there and I have some of this baker's twine so let's take off some of this and I'm going to pop on here first so just through the top oh I just realized I need to do the eyelets as well I'll do that off camera because I've done that enough times you know what to do there but you can obviously put the eyelets on this like I've done there so you can see on there and on there okay so that's that and then what I've got and what I've got what I've gone and done so these are all my fussy cut pieces from one of the sheets so whenever I get a paper pack I will pull out the pages that can be fussy cut and I will do loads of it and then put it in a plastic thing like this and keep it with the paper pack then throughout the whole time that you're using it it makes it so much easier to just go into this and pull out pieces that you need to match your paper pack rather than doing it each time so I have these two here and I'm going to create the same thing that I've done here okay so those are going to go on there and then on the front I have this jolly holidays tag which is going to come down like so and then this bow is going to go at the top there I think that looks so so cute and then this is going to go through this one here it's quite a thick ribbon as opposed to the string that I've used but I just love this pink stitched fabric ribbon it's just so nice so I'm going to pull that one through carefully I'm going to have to add the eyelet because I don't want to tear that but I'm just going to pop it like that for the minute and I'm just going to have that about there and then again whenever you're using fabric bows and stuff it's so much easier to use your hot glue sit that over the top there how cute does that look I love that and now that's ready obviously once I put the eyelet through but that will wrap around and again kind of tie you can have it hanging down I don't know if I'm going to get my ball balls through this one I may end up changing this ribbon but you'll see in the pictures anyway because I think that's going to be a bit much I don't like that at all I think that will just hang down in fact no I'm going to change that completely you won't see this I will have to have another look at my stash but I'm now going to sort out these bits here okay so I've just stuck them down on some cardstock and then I'm just going to quickly fussy well not quickly I'm just going to fussy cut these giving them that nice pink border okay like so and then I'm just going to pop them back on here again I want to try and get two out of this I didn't plan that very well because I don't think I've got any more of this pink left let's see I don't think I'm going to be able to do it in that case I'm going to have to use white on one oh no maybe I can't where I've looked but basically you just want to sit it on there and then draw around it this is just going to be the piece to go on the back to conceal the baker's twine like so so you'll see there the baker's twine is just in between the two now you could really there's no reason actually let's have a little look why I can't stick another one yeah how was that because then you won't see that lump so I'm actually going to do like so so I'm going to cover those so yeah so actually now all you want to do is stick another one so just do four of these and then we will just stick them back to back so they are done so I'm going to have one again I cut this string way too long I always do that I'm terrible for wasting ribbons and strings but now I can pop some glue just inside like so and then just cover the rest of this in glue like so and then I'll just have to kind of touch them up a bit but of course you know you can use die cuts and stuff for this but I like I like that homemade look that's what I always go for with my crafting so again I can just tidy that one up around like so there you go really nice little charm so I'm going to do exactly the same again on this one but I'm going to do this one shorter so cut that one I'm going to stick that one on there okay so that's it there are my lovely little snow globe charms which I just think are adorable really really sweet I've got that lovely bow there and then this I'm going to change which you'll see in the photos but again if I just open that up it's now ready to fill with any flat gifts so things that don't create too much bulk like I said you can pop something on here you can have your 25th day if you prefer but I just think that is just such a nice way yeah of gifting lots and lots of little presents and it wraps all the way around and I just think it's a lovely gift so I can't wait to get these posted out to two crafty friends that I'm going to be sending these to and there is the other one all using the first edition jolly holidays papers and I just adore them so check out my other pocket let's let's start again check out my other pocket letter because you might want to do a slightly smaller scale one but they are very easy to adapt as you can see you know you can make this pretty much any size you want but that's what I do so I hope you've enjoyed it if you have please give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel so you get to see more thanks for watching bye