Gift Card Holder Tutorial

***Please note....this is NOT my pattern. I have no idea where it came from, someone else taught me how to do this. I have found similar patterns on the internet for a similar card though!***


First, start with a sheet of 12x12 paper (Stampin' Up!'s 12x12 double sided paper is fabulous for this.

Fold the sheet in half and crease with your bone folder. The pattern that is on the outside of this fold will be the pattern on the outisde of your gift card holder.







Next, open the paper back up and fold the edges in to meet the middle, crease with your bone folder.

Open these back up and you will have three creases in your paper.









See the creases? I know, the pic makes it a bit difficult. Take the edges and fold in about 1/4"....this does not have to be perfect! Crease with a bone folder.

Then fold the corners in to meet the first set of creases and crease. (I hope this is making sense!)







Next, leaving the corners folded in, fold the sides in to meet the middle again. Easy peasy!













Flip the paper over (keeping it all folded), and fold one end down to the end of where the corners are folded in. Yes...I hope the picture helps you, I am so not good at explaining this!










Flip over again (Keeping everything folded) and fold the other end to meet the folded end neatly.











Fold the paper back over and flip the larger part over to meet the smaller. Crease them well!












Alright, tuck the big end into the little end and....voila! Almost done! You're almost there, don't give up now!













Fold the card in half and you're done! There are 4 spots to put a gift card or small sentiment cards....or whatever you want. I use a small bit of ribbon to tie mine closed!

Gifting myself

So my friend Leli suggested buying myself a gift in the hopes that it would bring my stamping drive back. I think she just wants to get more pretties in the mail.

So I bought this super cute tote from Michaels! I only ended up paying $13 and I had purchased a few other things. Thank goodness for the employee discount (though I looked at my reciept on Sunday and realised that I got 50% off everything that I purchased!)....and apparently last week employee discount was....well anyway....I found out just in time apparently.

I also ended up buying a few different 12x12 patterned papers and some more silver eyelets. I realised that I only had two silver eyelets! How can one go on without silver eyelets?!?! Anyway...I think that I will need them for my class next week, if I get any students *crossing my fingers and hoping to everything that is listening*.

I plan on teaching a unique cards class next week...a folded gift card holder (which is posted in my gallery and people went APE over), a pocket card, and a waterfall card. I set my demo samples out today so hopefully they will attract some attention. And for those who liked the folded card, I am going to try and post directions up here one day this week. It's really not as hard as it looks....I promise! ;)

ETA: I changed the settings so that people other than just blogger members could comment...so please do! And enjoy!

Stamping with Jen

We made 16 cards yesterday for her son's 1st birthday party invitations! It was tedious and took 3 hours because Jen had never stamped before but we had a good time and got them all done in the end!

These are all made with a Bazzil Basics monochromatic textured carstock pack, white cardstock from TAC, Wild Animals stamp set from TAC, You're invited stamp set from TAC, and Pallette Hybird inks. Looks impressive to me. And at the Halloween party she showed EVERYONE the cards!

And yes....that is her and I...SuperGirl and BatGirl!

Hum.

Well...in an effort to get re-aquainted with stamping and cardmaking and the likes, I am going to try to post here more often. As such, I joined the Stampers Top 50 site to get my blog out there a bit more and I was toying with the idea of doing some sort of give away to see about getting people reading. Personally, I peruse about 50 blogs a day (no, I don't have a life or children....it is just something I do between patients and when I am relaxing in the evening), and enjoy every single moment of it.

I realise (and BOY do I realise) that I am not the -best- stamper on SCS but I am trying and when I have the inspiration and am not in a slump, I love to stamp and make cards! That is all that matters!

It doesn't matter if you are the best, all that matters is if you love doing it. Someone on SCS said that today and it made a hella great deal of sense.

I was going to post a card, but well, Blogger was being mean and wouldn't let me. I am sure that one day this site will learn that resistance is futile....

Stamp Club

So I made the decision to switch Stampin' Up! demos. It took me about three months to make the decision, but I finally did it. I just decided that I wanted a little more hands on with my demo and a little less pressure to do a party. My old demo wanted me to do a party and I wasn't really up for it, but I felt bad about not doing it! I don't have alot of friends that stamp and untill last night, I had never stamped with other people.

I went to the stamp club meeting, which was 5 minutes from me (rather than the hour round trip just to pick up stamps with the previous demo). I got there a few minutes early because it was dark and I wasn't -exactly- sure where I was going. The demo was really nice and very welcoming and her home is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

So I sat down and we chatted a few moments and then the rest of the ladies came in and the demo introduced me to them. I felt weird...I feel weird meeting new people and I get really nervous and stutter like a moron. On top of that fact, I have a horrible cold sore that is making me look like a leper...so I felt even more freakish. They were all incredibly nice though, cold sore or not.

We made two projects. This was a new concept for me...seeing as how I am a pretty much self taught stamper. Stamping with others is FUN too! We chatted and cracked jokes and had snacks (oh I need that veggie pizza recipie.....yum).

This is the first. It is a gift card holder made from a 12x12 sheet of the double sided paper from the Holiday Mini. No cuts, only folds. I am hoping to be able to reproduce it for a class I am going to teach at Michael's...but we will see when I try it on my own tonight. We inserted small corrdinating cards which I stamped with Circle of Friendship. Some of the ladies did snowflakes, but I really was feeling this cranberry color!

This is the second one. My apologies for the crooked scan...but the durn thing just WOULD NOT stay still on the scanner bed. I will try and photograph it this evening and then repost it. This is an accordian fold card. The inside (not shown, obviously) is a piece of cardstock slightly smaller than the outside of the card itself. It is folded into an accordian shape every 1" and glued to the front and back cover. The outside is Always Artichoke, Cranberry Crisp, Creamy Caramel, and confetti kraft all edged with a sponge and Chocolate Chip ink. The image is from Always On My Mind. I am not sure what set the sentiment is from though.

All in all...loved stamp club. I can't wait untill next month to go and spend time with these ladies again and stamp some more cool things. In fact, my demo invited me to do a couple of her stamp camps if I am so inclined to do so...I think I will...it sounds like a ton of fun to me. The one thing that stamp club did do to me....was it made me regret unmounting my SU stamps. I miss the wood. I miss it alot. I might go home and re-wood mount everything (my boyfriend will KILL me) so that I can use it more often. I stamped more before I went totally unmounted. I wonder if that is the problem? Meh. ;)

Cricut Review

Well. I got to use the Cricut for the first time at Michael's this weekend. I demoed it for two hours and spent that ENTIRE time just cutting out words and shapes for the demo scrapbook I am doing for my class next month. Thought I would do a review of the chirpy little thing!

First...it's compact and portable. Very light and easy to carry by it's handle if you don't have the nifty little case for it. I plugged it in and pushed the on button...it was like the Starship Enterprise opening up! Fab! The warmup time is minimal and the Cricut is ready to go in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately I didn't have the instructions and I had never seen one of these bad boys in action, so it was a guessing game after that. Luckily the little display screen had step by step instructions on it! I, however, was unaware that you needed to stick you paper to a cutting mat BEFORE putting it in the machine! Whoot! So 8 sheets of paper later, I finally figure it out. My EC at Michael's didn't leave them out with the machine, so I was clueless.

Stick paper to cutting mat, load paper. After that it's cake work. Type in the letters you want, make sure you spelled it RIGHT, select cutting style and size, press cut. Simple as that.

Once you unload the paper, you have to carefully peel the paper from the mat because the mat is slightly sticky. It is a bit tricky but it comes up. I found a couple of the tools in the Cricut Tool Kit to be hella helpful with that.

When I was finished with the two hours of demoing, I had a huge stack of die cut things...nothing to do with them...but a huge stack of them. It's a pretty nifty machine, but I honestly cannot say that I would spend the $300 to purchase it. I don't use die cuts that much, and if I need one I can always just bop into the classroom and use theirs!

Been a busy week

I have been a hella bad poster. I guess when I have nothing to post about....I don't post. I haven't made any cards aside from the ones at my card class on Thursday and I gave those to my students to take home with them.

I am in a stamping slump....it's bad this time too...I ordered $80 worth of new stamps on Thursday and I am not even excited about them. :( Or my SU stamp club order for the month....ugh.

Someone beat me out of this.

A day at the zoo

Well we went to the zoo today with Jen, AJ, and the baby Cole. Cole liked the goats, that is for sure....he drooled on the goats and the goats drooled back.

In other news....I got my Fabriano paper today....beautiful stuff. I haven't stamped on it yet because I am just not in the mood at all to stamp. I also got two Souffle pens....not impressed. I dunno...maybe it is just my stamping funk.

My Birthday Card

He made me a card for my birthday. *tear* So sweet....he tried so hard and that Crop A Dile whooped his butt in the end. *sniffle*