Gift Card Holders 2012

Last year I hand cut about 15 gift card holders and made them very elaborate only to have the kids tear into them with out ever looking at all of my hard work….  

But it was a lesson learned.  The kids do not care what the package looks like they only care about what is on the inside.  So this year I am taking the simpler approach.  But I am getting some much needed help from

Cricut® Artiste Collection

In about 20 minutes I had the inside and the outside of 6 gift card holders DONE! The pattern I am using is on page 55 of the booklet.   I had a brain fart as to how to assemble these cute little envelopes so with some help from You Tube here is what I learned. 

Here is the base cut out

Fold along the score lines.

Ok – this is the part that was kicking my behind.  How to keep the card from falling out the bottom of the card.  Put some red line tape along one side as shown above.  Then I felt silly for letting it kick my behind!

Then fold.  The red line tape closes what would have been open at the seam.  Do not put red line tape on all 4 sides or you will not be able to put your card in the slot.

Here is what the inside looks like folded.

To attach the ribbon for closing.  Put red line tape along the “front”

Attach ribbon along on top of the red line tape.  Then add your top layer of      B & T paper to each side over the ribbon.

It will look like this when you are done. 

Now if you cut your top layer of B&T paper from the same pattern as the base cardstock you will have a cute little square that has only one place it can go.

Now, Last year I decorated both the inside flaps and the outside flaps.  This year I am just writing notes to each of the teens on the inside flap.  They might read it before tearing into the paper.   

Your gift card will fit in just like so,  Then you fold it all up and tie closed with the ribbon.

Here are 2 of the finished cards.  I only have 4 left to do and then I am done.  So maybe an hour… I just stamped the fronts with a stamp from 2010 that I still love and colored with the CTMH Alcohol markers.

Note:  It helps to Emboss the stamped image BEFORE coloring.  The color did not bleed after I embossed the image and it only took a few minutes to emboss all 6 cards.  Easy.   Oh shoot – I just remember I was going to put brad in the button area.  Oh well. 

So in about 90 minutes I have 6 cute yet simple gift card holders for the teens in my family.  Life could not get any better than this.