5 Things To Do with Envelopes

Shred Old Receipts Faster

The best way to get rid of receipts that may have your credit card number or other personal information in them is to shred them. But feeding tiny receipts into a shredder is tedious. Instead, place all the old receipts into a few used envelopes, then shred the envelopes.

Make a Small Funnel

You save money by ­buying your spices in bulk and you want to transfer them to smaller, handier bottles for use in the kitchen, but you don’t have a small funnel to do the job. Make a couple of disposable funnels from an envelope.

How to do it:
1. Seal the envelope
2. Cut it in half diagonally and snip off one corner on each half.

Now you have two funnels for pouring spices into your smaller jars.

Sort and Store Sandpaper

You know how sheets of sandpaper love to curl themselves up into useless tubes? Prevent that problem by keeping your sandpaper sheets organized by storing them in standard letter-size cardboard mailing envelopes. Use one envelope for each sheet of ­sandpaper. Use one envelope for each grit and write the grit on the outside for instant organization.

Make Bookmarks

Recycle all those envelopes by making them into handy bookmarks of different sizes.

How to do it:
1. Cut off the gummed flap and one end of the envelope
2. Slip the remainder over the corner of the page where you stopped reading for a quick place-holder that doesn’t damage your book.

Give a batch to the kids to decorate and use for their own books, or to give as a homemade addition to a present.

Make File Folders

Don’t let papers get ­disorganized just because you run out of file folders, make your own!

How to do it:
1. Cut the short ends off a light cardboard mailing envelope.
2. Turn it inside out so you have blank ­cardboard on the outside.
3. Cut a 2-centimetre-wide strip lengthwise off the top of one side. The other edge becomes the place where you label your file.