Quick Stylish Tree Gift Cards

Hello there! Tabbatha here today to finish off my tour of Picasa 3 and show you how to add some yummy papers and save them into an Album for a particular project. Not only that, I have a tutorial for very cute and quick gift card holders. :D

So without further ado...Picasa 3 has a function that is called "Albums", these are Picasa-only folders that you can easily add items from different local folders to. I mostly use my Albums to create folders that I plan to upload to Online Galleries, such as Google+ Photos. In fact, this little trick is totally not my brain child, but of fellow DT member Sam! Also, if you sign in to Picasa, you have super easy way to sync anything just by clicking a little blue button on the upper right. Just be careful you don't sync and publicly share your digis or papers - only completed projects!!  :)

On the left hand of the Picasa window you will find a list of all all the Collections and up at the very top you'll find your Albums.

The Sync to Web button can be found in the title space in the main window of your Collections. If it is blue, then it means you are syncing.

When picking papers for your project, make sure to click on the "Hold to Selected Items" pin down there in the Selection Tray. For my gift card project I wanted to use some beautiful, Funky papers from the Stylish Tree Downloadables. I had thought about using some Christmas digis as well, but didn't put them on (as you will see later).

Once you have your papers in the Selection Tray, click on the little book in order to add them to an Album. Here, I've created a new Album called "Funky Hand Inspiration". One thing I make sure is that this album is NOT synced, again, publicly sharing digital stamps and papers is not allowed - only complete projects! 

So..at this point I have all my papers for my project selected and in an Album. After they are printed out the gift card making can begin!

Now that the paper is printed, this is what we'll be making!

Supplies needed: 

1 12x12inch cardstock of coordinating colors 

 4 sheets of coordinating digital papers from Stylish Tree Downloads

Double-Sided Tape

A cutting tool - here I'm using my Fiskars

And a scoring board (Scor-pal shown)

Liquid Glue (optional)

Embellishments

All of my measurements were done in inches due to the fact that my Scor-pal is in inches, sorry Metric Buddies! 

Step 1) Cut the 12x12 cardstock into strips 2.75" wide by 8.5" long. 

Step 2) Score each strip at the 1.5" mark and again at the 5.5" mark. Fold at each crease mark, using your bone folder to make the creases nice and crisp. What you'll end up with is a top-folded card. 

Step 3) Cut panels for the gift card. You will need a 2.5"x1.25" panel, a 2.5"x3.75" panel and a 2.5"x2.75" panel per gift card. For my set of 5, I had 15 panels in total cut. 

Step 4) Adhere the panels to the cardstock. This can be done a number of ways, double-sided tape, liquid glue or you can sew them in place like I did. I should note that I first applied a piece of double-sided tape to the middle of panel first (very very far away from the area I was going to sew) in order to keep the panel in place.

Step 5) Close up the card by putting some sort of adhesive on the lower panel's two sides and closing it up. You can then hide those pesky inner seems with washi tape! I picked a beautiful coordinating washi tape to cover the inner seems. It helps keep the sewing thread in place so that it doesn't unravel, as well as make it look pretty sharp on the inside. You could sew the sides together as well, I just went for a panel look instead. :D 

Step 6) Embellish to your hearts content. I didn't finish embellishing these little guys, but I made sure to add a nice Large button of a sorts that I could tuck the folded top flap into to keep it closed. You could use twine, magnets, or even velcro for that same purpose.

I know that this is a rather lengthy post, but I really love how the gift cards turned out and wanted to share how I did them, plus how I used Picasa 3 to keep my selected papers at hand. :D Thanks for stopping by and remember to link up any project you have made with Funky Hand Products below!

Cheers! /Tabbatha