Christmas Card With a Hidden Gift Card

It is that time of the year again - the Christmas music,magical decorations and of course the gifts.Christmas gift shopping can be stressful sometimes when you don't know what to get the person.You might end up getting the most basic gift ever - a gift card,but in this Instructable I am going to show you how you can present the gift card in a beautiful way and leave both you and the receiver of the gift happy.

Let's get started!

• Thick cardstock
• Christmas themed designer papers
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Single hole punch
• Ribbon
• Bone folder
• Nail art dotting tool
• A gift card for size reference
• Distress ink
• Distress ink pad
  

This card is a beginner friendly scrapbooking project.

Take a thicker paper of your choice - I went with a beautiful double sided forest green cardstock.Cut it so that it's 7 cm wide.I am purposefully leaving the length to cut down later to minimize any errors.

Each of my seperate design pieces measures 7x7 cm.Take your dotting tool and score down the paper at 7 cm.You should be left with a 7x7 cm square.I used four different designs which means I need to score three more times.Make the next score 1 cm away from the first one.Continue scoring until you have four score lines in total,so two more scores,each one being 1 cm away from the previous one.

Fold each score like shown in the fifth photo.Leave the cardstock folded (refer to the last image).

To make this card you need four different designs to put on the front. Since the theme is Christmas and gifts I found these beautiful papers with a hot chocolate cup,Santa Claus and a cute tree.Remember that the receiver of this card will be flipping through these so choose whatever you or they like.You can even put some photos of you together.

I love distressing paper.It makes it look so much more detailed and beautiful.You can skip this step but if you happen to have a distress ink I highly recommend you to use it for this project.Using an ink blending tool dip it into some ink and gently distress the edges of the papers.You will be left with vintage looking papers.

Once you are done distressing the designs it's time to glue them down to their ''bases''.The base is the 7x7 cm designer paper i mentioned earlier.Choose two different,preferably double sided designer papers,and cut 4 squares measuring 7x7 cm each.

Next,glue down the previously distressed designs using some PVA craft glue.Apply the glue evenly - not too little,not too much.In the end smooth everything out using a bone folder.

Repeat this step with all of the designs.

Take the scored piece of cardstock and choose one of the designs.Glue it down to the first 1 cm scored section of the green cardstock.Flip it over and clean up any excess glue you might have.

Glue your second and third design to the second and third scored sections respectively.Each design goes underneath the previous one.Always clean up any excess glue.This way the designs will be flipping easily.The last design goes to the 7x7 cm square section.

When you have all of the designs glued down,cut the excess green cardstock.I would recommend to cut it about 1-2 cm wide (refer to the last photo).

To create the ''mechanism'' of this card cut a strip of the same green cardstock about 10 cm wide and 3 cm long. Glue it on the back of the last design (the 7x7 cm square). Fold the edges over the back side of the cardstock (refer to the third picture).

It's time to make the hidden compartment of this project.

Start out by placing the gift card on top of the green cardstock piece.The reason why it looks different is because it has a different design on its back.Cut two little triangles to go on the corners of the gift card.Using a small amount of glue,glue the triangles down and let them dry.

Using another piece of thick cardstock cut it down to 14x18 cm.Score it down the middle using the nail art dotting tool and fold to create the actual card.

The only thing left to do is glue the scrapbook flipping card to the actual card - refer to the fourth image to see where to apply the glue.It's important to apply the glue only on those little sections of paper.

As a finishing touch distress the card itself,too.

Optionally you can add a small piece of ribbon so that the receiver of this card knows where to pull.

Punch a hole using a single hole punch and tie the ribbon.Fold the piece of ribbon in half and push it through the hole,creating a small loop.Bring the rest of the ribbon through that loop and pull gently to tie the ribbon.