Good morning everyone and welcome back to the craft room! As the great-niece and great-nephews get older it is getting more difficult to buy Christmas gifts for them. So, we have been getting them each a gift card so they can purchase exactly what they want or need. Each year I do my best to create different gift card holders. This year, I modify a card using the Stack, Cut, and Shuffle technique to create the four gift card holders.
Stack, Cut & Shuffle
A few months ago I ran across a YouTube video showing a technique called the Stack, Cut, & Shuffle. Here’s a video from Cindy Brumbaugh sharing the technique in here video Stack, Cut, and Shuffle Card Technique. I will run through the technique below, but when you have a moment please click the video link and show Cindy some love.
The Stack and Cut:
Let’s get started! First find 4 pieces of coordinating patter paper cut to 4″ x 5 1/4″. My patter paper is from the Winter Berry paper pad from Hobby Lobby. All of the paper coordinates beautifully.
In the image below, you can see how we are going to cut our pattern paper.
When we make each of our cuts, we are going to stack them all together.
- The first cut is vertical at 2 3/4″
- With the 2 3/4″ piece we will me a horizontal cut at 3″
- Now with the 1 1/4″ wide piece make a horizontal cut at 3 1/4″
The Shuffle:
Now that we have our pieces cut, let’s do the shuffle. I have my pieces fanned out in the order they were stacked and they are separated into numbered piles. This will help show you what we are going to be doing next.
- From stack #1: move the top piece of paper and move it to the bottom of that stack.
- From stack #2: move the top two pieces of paper to the bottom of the stack.
- From stack #3: move 3 pieces of paper to the back of the stack.
- From stack #4: nothing will move from this stack.
The Gift Card Holder
To make these into gift card holders I wanted to make envelopes. The easiest way for me is with the We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board. I had left over pattern paper from the card fronts large enough to make these. The cutting guide on the tells us that a gift card sized envelope needs a piece of paper 5″ x 5″ square.
Putting the paper into the Punch Board, line the left side up with the 2″ mark on the ruler. Punch the paper and then draw the score line as show below.
Next turn the paper to the left and line up the score line tick mark on the Punch Board. Punch and score the second line.
Turn the paper again to the left and line up the tick mark on the Board. This should also line up at the 2″ mark on the ruler, punch and score the third line.
Now make the final turn, line up the previous score line with the tick, punch and score your last line.
If you want, you can round the corners of the envelope with the corner rounder on the machine.
Fold your envelope and burnish the lines with your bone folder. When I made my envelope, I wanted to square off the bottom flap. I just made a tick mark with my pencil and used my mini trimmer to remove it. The top flap isn’t needed, so it was glued the to the inside of the envelope.
When gluing the envelope inside of the card, I matched the envelope with the top left panel of the card. To make it easier to remove the gift card, I made a little pull tab out of scrap paper.
The Finished Cards
To finish off this years cards, I used a sentiment from a set I received from my 2nd cousin. It is stamped in Vintage Photo Archival Ink and the corners are rounded. To separate it from the background I inked all of the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. To add some dimension, the sentiment is popped up with thin foam squares.
Thank you so much for stopping by today! Do you use gift cards for hard to buy for relatives? If so do you make your own gift card holders or purchase them from the store? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll see you again soon!