Anything but a card...

Crimbo Crackers is one of the blogs I follow, and their current challenge (#55) is "Anything but a card." Since I needed some gift card holders for Christmas, I decided to join this challenge by making a few of those.

My husband and I buy gifts for one of the 80 families our church sponsors for Christmas. These families are low-income and have a difficult time buying gifts at Christmas time so we love to help out. We get a list of family members, their ages, genders and sometimes some ideas as to what they are interested in. The family that we selected actually suggested that gift cards for either Walmart or Target would be a welcomed gift, so along with a few other fun items for them to open, we did get them some gift cards.

I certainly didn't want to just put the cards in an envelope and add them to our box of gifts; I wanted to present the cards in a way befitting the occasion. Here's what I came up with:

 There's a great tutorial here on Splitcoaststampers for making this box. It's super easy and quick to put together. You can even add a little candy to the inside, which I haven't had a chance to do yet.



I used my new Cheery Lynn holly leaves die to create the poinsettia on each belly band. I think this die makes great poinsettias. Since the leaves are in 3 different sizes you can make different size flowers.

The flowers came together very quickly. I simply punched out a 1" circle as my base and began by gluing the largest leaves on first. I did ink the edges or add glitter and curl each leaf slightly before constructing my flowers.

Here's a peek at the inside so that you can see how the card is held in place and simply pops up when the box is opened. Isn't that fun?

Here's a little closer look at the pop-up portion of the liner. You can see how the card fits neatly into the slot. I did add a tiny little dimensional to the bottom of the card and adhered it to the front of the pop-up. It's such a tiny dimensional that it won't take much of a tug to pull the card free.

Here's one last look at these cute little boxes. I just need to pick up some candy kisses to add to the inside. If you check out the tutorial on Splitcoaststampers, you'll see exactly how that's done.

I hope you enjoyed taking a peek at my little 3D project. Give it a try. It's such a great way to give a gift card!

Thanks for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl