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Ephemera folder for Happy Mail and Junk Journals

Happy Mother's Day to you! What's happening crafty friends? Are you creating lots of fabulous paper things? I hope so. Today's craft is a very easy and quick piece of ephemera. This folder would be great in a junk journal or tucked into an envelope for a pen pal. It would also be great as a gift card holder for Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays, or other gift-giving occasions. One gift card for each pocket. That may be coming in another tutorial soon.
Ephemera folder, vintage for junk journal.
Front of the folder when tied.
Inside of ephemera folder featuring pockets and collaged images.
Inside the folder
To begin construction, measure out a piece of patterned paper, six inches tall and 12 inches wide. You can use double-sided patterned paper or glue two single-sided pieces together. Another option is to go with the single-sided pattern and cover the bare side in later steps, which is what I've chosen to do.
Ephemera pocket folder with TIm Holtz paper doll and collaged images
Tim Holtz ephemera peaking out the pocket. 
After you cut your paper to six inches tall and 12 inches wide, score horizontally along the length of your paper, two inches up (reducing its height). That might sound confusing. You want to have a two-inch pocket that travels horizontally along the length of your paper. So what was previously six inches tall, will now be four inches after scoring with a two-inch pocket. I hope I didn't beat that into the ground.😆 Turn your paper pocket side down. Score vertically along the length of your 12-inch paper, every three inches. So you should score at three, six, and nine inches.
Ephemera folder pocket with stamped terrarium image and fern sticker.
Terrarium dome stamped ephemera.
I cut thumb notches into my pockets using half of a five-eighths inch circle punch. I chose to distress my piece everywhere, on every fold, and on all edges front and back. I have an old black dew drop ink pad that's mostly dried up and so it works great for distressing. To cover the bare spots of paper on the inside of your folder cut out four squares that measure just under three inches across and just under four inches tall. Distress all edges of these squares and glue them into place as a background for each pocket. Cut along the fold of the pocket until you reach where the pocket meets your base and then glue the pocket in place.
Vintage ephemera pocket with smiling girl peaking out.
Ephemera, Ephemera!
You may choose to decorate the pockets as I have. I simply layered ephemera consisting of stamped images, labels, used postage stamps, and ephemeral elements from Tim Holtz. You'll want to decide if and how you'll make a closure for the folder. Do this before decorating the front of your folder. I glued a small black ribbon across the front and on the very back panel of my folder so it could be tied at the side. Some other options might be velcro dots, a paper clip, or simply tying it with baker's twine. Use what works for you. I folded back the top front edge of the pocket and glued it in place before decorating with small pieces of ephemera and finishing it with black jewels.
Vintage Ephemera pocket with stamped image of 50's lady.
Embossed 50's lady Ephemera.
 I placed three pieces of ephemera in each pocket for the recipient. Folded up this item is much less than a quarter-inch thick so you can certainly add more to your folder or envelope and still not exceed the maximum thickness to send through the postal system as regular flat mail. This piece will be mailed out to a swap friend. I followed a youtube tutorial by Cathy's garden to create this piece which you can find here. 
Folder wrapped in book page with decorated elements and a decorated envelope.
All wrapped up and ready to go!
Thank you for checking out today's blog post. Drop questions and comments below. If you enjoy my content feel free to follow me on Instagram @craftinbish. 💗




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