Tutorial Review: Gift Card Holder

Hello!

We do so much research for our projects to get inspired to do new things. That research comes from Google searches, Pintrest, and YouTube just to name a few. It's not uncommon to start with a tutorial as it is and tweak as you go. Today we're going to be looking at a tutorial I found a while back and just finally tried out for some graduation cards this year. 

Her name is Gina K and her YouTube account is StampTV. She's very talented and clearly she has been doing this a long time. Her style is very much like mine, I only wish I had all of her toys. Some day!

Today we'll be talking about her two-part tutorial for gift cards. It was very well done, of course, but there were a few things I tweaked along the way. First of all, I wanted to do mine in a more masculine look because I had a couple of guys graduating high school and I didn't want to give the traditional card to them.

She ran through the measurements pretty quick so I had to go back a couple of times to get all of them written down. I do like the sizes because you can get 2 gift card holders from one 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock. You can't beat saving paper! Here's they are:

Base Cardstock: 4 1/4" x 10"

• Score at: 3", 4", 5", 8"

Patterned Paper:

(Inside)

• 2 - 2 3/4" x 4"
• 1 - 3 3/4" x 4"
• 2 - 3/4" x 4"

(Outside)

• 2 - 2 3/4" x 4"
• 1 - 1 3/4" x 4"  (Top flap)

So here's what I'm using:

I used basic brown cardstock with my BoBunny Trail Mix collection 6" x 6" cardstock. I thought it turned out perfectly! Everyone who saw the finished product immediately knew it was for a guy and loved the patterns! I'll definitely be saving what I have left for more guy cards. So next I cut out all of my papers and scored my bases to match what she said:

Next she suggests using a corner rounder on all of the base corners and on the top and bottom patterned papers for both sides. I totally agree with this because I love the effect rounded corners give. Then everything gets glued on.

Outside patterns

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but on the outside patterns picture you can see there is some shiny red tape (super permanent double sided tape) on the outside edges on the blank areas. They were left intentionally blank because you won't be able to see the inside of the pocket for the card. So here we wanted to be sure not to put the adhesive too far in because then the card wouldn't fit. The only addition (not pictured here) that I ended up making was that I added a line of red tape along the outside edge because when I put the sides together and later added my card, I found that it could easily slip out. So this way it can be completely tucked inside the card and I felt much better about them possibly carrying around the gift card in the holder.

Inside patterns

Next she had everyone turn the card so that newly formed pocket stuck away from the card in order to make the slit for the card to tuck into. She had everyone cut 1/4" off of the pocket which looked ok, but you lose the layered effect on that area. I decided to just take an Xacto knife and my metal ruler and cut a slice on the score line the width of my card. it was invisible once folded and I got to keep my layered look.

Where she decided to move onto closing the card, I felt like it needed an area where I could write something. So I used the Spellbinders Label 17 and punched out a couple of light brown cardstock pieces for my sentiments  I "aged" them with some Tom Holtz Archival ink in Tea and Tuxedo Black. This is a hand done process so no two are ever the same, which I really like.

    

Now I was ready to move on to the outside. She stamped a rounded sentiment and punched it out with a round punch and layered it onto a ribbon horizontally with the flap side in front. I thought that looked nice, but I made a couple of changes for myself. I had a really cute "You Did It" stamp I wanted to use and I used it with the Label 17 collection on white and light brown. I used a very bright shiny wide green ribbon as my focal color splash. Since my sentiment was more vertical, I decided to wrap my card vertically and I placed the stamped sentiment on the "back" because I wanted it to be the focus. I really like the finished product!

 

All in all it was a great tutorial! This is definitely a pattern I will use for years to come! It is such an easy and quick card holder. I love all of the options you could do with the card. I also love how many different occasions you could use this for: Weddings, Anniversaries, Graduations, Just Because, the list goes on! And while I didn't make any great big changes, I made enough that it looks and feels like mine.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial review/breakdown of a some grad cards I made! Thank you for checking out our blog and we hope to hear from you soon. Don't forget to check out our YouTube channel and our Instagram page!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce