Authentique Paper: Beautifying Simple Gifts

For the past few Mother's Days, I've made things for my lovely mother and mother-in-law. This year has been a little busier than most, and I think I'm going to take a breather and choose a slightly easier path... Gift cards! There is only one problem, gift card envelopes are kind of ugly. So I found a few PDF's and SVG cuts for the following cards.

These three were the easiest things to make! I simply followed this tutorial (and PDF) to create them. They were so easy! I actually preferred these to the ones that I cut with my electronic die cut machine. It was really nice to be able to use scissors and achieve something so pretty!

Here is an open card with a card in it so that you can see what the finished product looks like.

 

This cute little box which is the perfect size for a gift card was created using this template. It's really nice that there is an option for both a PDF and a SVG version. I cut this, then just messed with a generic heart shape to layer on the top of the closure. It's not perfect, but it's really cute.

This was just a super simple folded paper that I used my X-Acto to cut little holder marks to hold the card. I simply used a gift card holder that I had been given as my template.

A few things I figured out while making these:

• If you want to use the PDF template, you can use a light holding adhesive to temporarily attach the tracing sections to the paper so that it stays still (Authentique paper is great for this, as it's so thick!) I used my ATG, then my hand to "unstickify" the glue a little bit.
• It is really easy to wrap neat ribbons around a simple gift card holder to make it more special. 
• I found that if my ribbon was wrinkled, my flat iron worked really well to smooth it out. I used the lowest setting possible.

I hope that you have fun making even the simplest of gifts just a little more special! Happy Mother's Day!

Authentique Paper Products: "Gathering": Tabloids, Icons, Foundations, Bloom, Harmony, Flourish, Grow, Reminisce, Classic Type, Petite Type
May Arts Products: All ribbon products by May Arts
Other Supplies: Colorbox Chalk Ink, dimensional adhesive, Basic Grey buttons and brads