Gift Card Holder Cards

Gifts have become more impersonal than ever nowadays, with the break through of gift cards in the market. No more standing in line to buy the perfect gift for your loved ones during the holiday season. Now you can purchase gift cards at the same time as you would be purchasing the goodies you will be having for Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.

I still enjoy receiving thought out gifts wrapped in pretty little paper with a pretty little bow. But a lot of people do enjoy gift cards. It helps you avoid receiving an awkward gift that you’d want to run to the store and return the next day.

This opens up a wide array of opportunities and creative ideas for card makers, like myself. ( Yes, I just started making cards, but I feel like an official card maker. )

I searched high and low through very popular sites, such as YouTube and I found a nifty little gift card holder idea. It allows you to have a slot in the front to place your gift card, but at the same time it folds open for a personal message.

At first, I had a hard time figuring out how to make them. It was really a pain in the booty to get those cards to be perfect and straight. After 2 tries and several head aches later, I figured it out. My first gift card holder was of a snowflake. My ideas were to coordinate some of my gift cards with some of my greeting cards. You never know who your customer might be and it gives them an opportunity to buy a greeting card or a gift card holder, in the print that they adore. No more “Darn it, I wish they had this card in a gift card holder format” moments.

 Another thing that I enjoyed from the gift card holder is that you are able to use scraps. Since the measurements of the gift card are smaller than your average greeting card. You can perfectly use all your left over scraps from greeting cards in order to avoid throwing perfectly good cardstock in the garbage. I think it was a fantastic idea and very useful too.

Unfortunately, the downside to these adorable gift card holders is that I need to custom make the envelopes for them. Since they are about 4” by 3 ½”, I need to make the envelope from scratch because the typical store bought envelopes measure about 4 ½” by 5 ¾”. Which would make them very loosely fit in the envelope and that wouldn’t look to nice. But on a bright side to custom making the envelopes, I can now coordinate the envelope to match the gift card holder. This is an added feature that is not available on greeting cards.

Well, I think I have rambled enough. I must get back to my regular 8:30 – 5 job. :) I am definitely looking forward to some card making tonight after work & school. So hopefully I will be able to share with you a new idea/technique I used for my shop.