Supplies

• Envelopes
• Coffee
• Cookie tray
• Green pen
• Red wax or candle
• Wax stamper
• Clear cord
• Tape
• Mini lights (optional)

To give the letters an aged look I soaked them in coffee. I left them in for only ten minutes, making sure the entire envelope was saturated. If you want to experiment with leaving them in longer, go for it. I’m not sure if that will result in a darker color or not but I found that ten minutes gave me the look I wanted. Be careful when you take them out. Since they’ve been soaking, the glue no longer holds the flaps down and the envelope will come undone if you aren’t careful. If this happens just fold it back together and let it dry. If they’re still lose after they’ve dried then run a glue stick over the flaps and press them down.

I experimented with drying them three different ways: 1. air drying, 2. the oven, and 3. a hairdryer. Personally, I liked the results of air drying the best. When I used the oven I set the temp at 250 degrees and only placed them in for several minutes. If you do this approach please be careful and keep your eye on them. I was surprised how much they puffed up from drying this way. Using a hair dryer puffed them up even more! Air drying doesn’t mean they’ll come out completely flat but it was the closest I came to it. Since this approach takes the longest time, plan on leaving them out for at least a day. Once they’re completely dry you can put a heavy book over them to flatten them more if desired.

If you have good penmanship then all you need for the written part are envelops and a green pen. I myself am a perfectionist and wanted them to look exactly like the letters from movie. To achieve this I printed out an envelope sized image of the envelope used in the movie, traced over the writing in a black pen to make it darker and then placed it on a glass table with a light underneath. The light can either be a lamp, flashlight or the flashlight app from your phone. Place the light under the glass table so it’s shining up at you underneath your print out. Then place the envelope over top of it. Press down on the envelope so you can see the writing from the print out and trace the lettering in green ink.

For the wax seal, I bought a thin red candle and held it over each envelope to let a few drops drip onto the back. I’ve read other crafting blogs where clay was used instead. I tried that method first but found the clay didn’t stick very well. Fun fact, if you want to be book accurate, the wax on Harry Potter’s letters was actually purple. For some reason the movie changed it to be red which is now how it’s always represented.

To make it look like they were coming out of the fireplace I taped long strands of clear cord from the fireplace to the ceiling. I placed the strands at varying distances away from the fireplace on the ceiling so they weren’t all lined up evenly. Next, take a small piece of tape and attach the cord to the back of the envelope. For an added touch of magic I ran a strand of mini lights up and down two of the strands.