Happy Mother's Day Gift Card Holders

I have been creating and picking up little Mother's Day gifts for the moms in my life, including making a pyramid box filled with bath products from Lush (click here to see my post featuring that project), but my mom and my mother-in-law love to shop, so I always include gift cards with the gifts my husband and I give them on Mother's Day.

These are so quick to put together, and to make two, you only need two sheets of 12x12 paper and the discarded clamshell packaging from a Cricut cartridge!

I started by cutting the boxes at 5-1/2" on Wildcard (the old one, not Wildcard 2) from page 80.  I cut this on my Expression, and as I have mentioned before, the Expression, Expression2, and Imagine cut at slightly different sizes so please make a mock up if you are using these measurements on a machine other than the Expression!

I kept the rectangular-shaped waste (negative space from the cut to use on the card).

I cut the card that I placed inside the box which holds the gift card by hand at 4-3/8" x 6-1/2".  I scored it in half to fold it down to 4-3/8" x 3-1/4".  My paper trimmer has a smudge guard that holds paper in place separately from the blade rail.  For scoring, I used the smudge guard to hold paper that I lined up.  I use an X-acto knife to do the scoring, lightly cutting.  I used this same method to score the box lines.  Because of the actual cutting, this type of scoring hides the tick marks that will show when using a scoring board and bone folder!

I folded the card along the score line and adhered the rectangular piece reserved earlier from the box cut to make a mat inside the card to create a base for the gift card.

After I taped it in place with an ATG, I realized that I could have formed a little pocket for the validation receipt if I had kept the top open-- definitely doing that next time!  (Love my little arrow-- that's just for you, not for mom!)  Instead, I folded them and taped to the back of the gift cards.  The gift cards were attached to the mats with 1/16" pop dots.

The fun thing about this design is that the gift card could go on top of the card, to show through the window or inside the card, allowing the front of the card to show through the window instead!  I decided inside was better this time because I wanted to emboss the packaging that I was using in the box window.

As soon as I get a cartridge, I cut off the sides of the clamshell packages, keeping only the flat tops and bottoms, making them easy to store!

I cut the one of these down to 4-1/8" x 3-1/8".  The hardest part was picking an embossing folder!

This material embosses perfectly!  I used 1/4" Terrifically Tacky Tape to adhere the embossed material to the inside of the box before the box is assembled.

I found that the box goes together more 'square' when I use my ATG to apply tape to the bottom and right side of the back flap and fold all the sides in as shown before pressing the back flap in place, making sure to tuck in the top behind the side so it can be opened and closed once the box is glued in place.

Once assembled, I added a piece of 10-3/8" ribbon, notched.  I wanted to be sure Mom could easily open the box so I wrapped the ribbon around the box instead of going over the top!

I used a separate piece of ribbon to tie the bow and attached it with E6000 adhesive so that it would remain adhered on the plastic material.

Crafty cuts:

• Box - Wild Card cut at 5-1/2"
• Card-  Hand-cut 4-3/8" x 6-1/2" folded down to 4-3/8" x 3-1/4"
• Acetate for box insert-  Hand-cut 4-1/8" x 3-1/8"
• Ribbon-  Cut at 10-3/8" plus length for the bow

These were so fast and easy-- and so much prettier than the envelopes they came in!  I loved the idea of embossing the acetate for other kinds of occasions too and had to try out my new Cloud embossing folder.  It is raining here this morning, so I guess that is why a raining gift card box made sense!

Well, I guess I have goofed off enough today... now it's time to be wined and dined by my husband... and gifted by my kiddo.... ahhh, the life!

Happy Mother's Day!