The Envelope Tip Experiment

Did you ever seal an envelope and put on the postage only to realize you needed to change something? Or add something? I read this little trick in an email about putting the sealed envelope in the freezer for a few hours. It said you can easily open it by sliding a knife under the flap and reseal it.

Well, I had an occasion to give this a try. Tuesday since I had the time, after stuffing the envelopes to my Sunday School class with the newsletter, I sealed them up, put on the stamps because I had two that were loose and didn’t want to lose them but waited to mail them until Wednesday.

If only I just didn’t seal them, I could have avoided this problem:

When I got home and finally read the church bulletin, I discovered the time was different than usual for one of the upcoming events that I had mentioned in my newsletter. I’m so glad I didn’t actually mail them! First thing I did when I got to work a half hour early was to put the sealed envelopes in the freezer for an hour (and take a picture for this blog post). When I got them out, I must say I was disappointed in this tip. They did not open easily and you can certainly tell they were once opened and resealed because I needed to put tape on them to close them up again. I had to use the letter opener to slide it under the flap and it only worked for a small part of the way. I found cutting it along the seam with scissors worked best. It was the easiest way and also looked the neatest. I had 14 to do so had plenty of chance to experiment.

Here’s my tips for mailings:

Do not seal them until you are ready to mail them! I’m still learning this step. I do it for work mail, now if I could only remember to do it for my personal mail too!

It’s always best to let them sit a day or two. Something else may come up to add or you may realize you want to change something. This is why it is best not to seal them right away.

Refrain from putting the stamps on until after they are sealed and ready to go. You may decide not to mail them after all or maybe need to change an address. Also, especially with cards, sometimes you find the card does not fit in the envelope.

By following these tips, you can avoid having to open and reseal envelopes because the freezer tip doesn’t work all that well. It just goes to show you that you can’t believe everything you read, but it was worth a try. Have you come across any tips that don’t really work? What about some that do? I’m all ears!

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