Teacher Appreciation Gift Card Holder – FREE TEMPLATE

I have many family and friends that are teachers. When asked they overwhelmingly say their favorite gift is a handwritten note or drawing from their students. Second are practical and space saving gift cards. I recently wanted to give a little gift to my daughter’s teacher to thank her for some extra help she gave her. I came up with the perfect gift that combines these two things. And I’m sharing it with you today for free!

Materials

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Watch me make the teacher pop-up gift card holder or if you prefer written instructions keep reading.

Upload the Teacher Gift Card Holder Template into Cricut Design Space

The first step is to download the FREE Gift Card Template from my Freebies page. Save it onto your device where you can find it again.

Upload the SVG into Cricut Design Space.

Need help? Check out my previous post: How to Upload a File Into Cricut Design Space

Prepare the Gift Card Template for Cutting

Once you upload the template you will need to do a few things in order to make it ready to cut.

First, you will need to ungroup the SVG.

Next, select and drag the cute little notebook paper off of the template. I just put it below to get it out of the way.
You will see 4 lines on the gift card template. We need to change those to score lines otherwise they will cut our template into pieces.
I find it easiest to go to the layers panel, hold down shift and select each of the four lines.
While, they are all highlighted go to the Operations box along the top and change from Basic Cut to Score.

Teacher appreciation pop up gift card template personalized note diy Cricut

Now we have our score lines, but there is one more step to get it to work correctly.
Select the blue template and all four score lines, you can highlight it on the canvas or select shift and highlight it in the layers panel.
Once they are highlighted, go down to the bottom of the layers panel and select Attach.
Perfect, now you will have great score lines which will make folding the gift card template a breeze.

Now that your template is ready, we need to get these adorable little notebook papers ready to Print then Cut.
Why Print then Cut? They are in SVG format so you could cut them out in vinyl, but it’s so much faster and easier to write on if you print them out.
Select one of your notebook pieces of paper by highlighting it. Select the Flatten button at the bottom of the layers panel. This will get rid of the black outlines and make it look like a true piece of notebook paper. It will also change the operation to Print Then Cut.
Repeat the process with the second sheet of notebook paper.

Now you are ready to Make It! (That’s your cue to select the Make It button.) 🙂

Printing the Notebook Paper

You will see the notebook paper is the first up. Select the Continue button.

Next, select Send to Printer.

Select your printer. A few things to keep in mind:

When doing Print then Cut, I always make sure my printer output is set to High Quality to avoid white lines through my print outs.
I use 65 lb 8.5 x 11 white cardstock. It looks nicer than copy paper, but still works well with my printer.
I left Add Bleed on and it worked great.

Hit the Print button.

While that is printing, I select my material type for the cutting portion of Print then Cut. For my 65lb cardstock, I use the Medium Cardstock cut setting.

Attach your printed paper to a mat and load it into your Cricut. Tip: I always use a Brayer to attach my paper and vinyl to the mat. Please note, you do not need the scoring tool for this step. It’s just there in anticipation of the next step. Select the Go Button.

You will get two adorable little pieces of notebook paper. I’m not sure why I find these so stinking cute, but I do.

Cutting out the Teacher Gift Card Holder

Now that we have our notebook paper, we need to cut out our gift card holder. Go back into Cricut Design Space. You will see the template is up next.

Again, I’m using 65lb 8.5 x 11 cardstock for the template. If you are very careful lining it up on your mat, it just fits. So set your material to Medium Cardstock.

We need some type of scoring tool (wheel or stylus) for this cut.

I’m using a Maker 3 and also using a Scoring Stylus. On the Maker 3, it defaults to scoring wheel, so you have to change it if you are using a stylus like me. Select Edit next to Load tools and materials. When tool options comes up, select the scoring stylus. If you are using an Explore Air, just insert your stylus.

Use a Brayer to attach the cardstock to your mat. I left a little space on the left hand side of my mat to get the template to fit on my letter sized paper.

Load it and cut it. You get this gorgeous template.

Assembling the Teacher Gift Card

Now that you have all of your pieces ready, it’s time to assemble. Those beautiful score lines you made make this part so easy.

I still like to use my crease tool to get crisp folds, but it’s not necessary.

The center portion that holds the gift card steeples up when you fold it. See below.

Fold everything else in towards the center.

Next, flip the gift card over and apply glue around the edges of the center portion. Make sure you stick to the edges so you don’t glue shut the pocket the gift card sits in. Press it together and let it dry.

Now it’s time to glue the cute little notebook papers into the gift card. I have my daughter write them out first before I glue them in. It’s easier for her.

Adding Extra Special Touches

You can stop here and have an adorable gift card holder with a very special note or drawing that your teacher will love. Or you can add a couple extra special touches.

I decided to add some extra touches.

I included her teacher’s name of the front of the gift card. I did this by cutting out white glitter adhesive vinyl and adhering it to the cardstock. For step by step instructions on how I accomplish this tricky task read this post: How To Add Glitter Vinyl To Cardstock

The font I used is called Festive.

Then I added this cute little stack of books “charm” that I designed. I’ve included it free for you. I did a Print then Cut on sticker paper for the stack of books and then cut out the cardstock backing. I stuck the sticker to the backing and got this adorable charm.

I put the charm on silver threaded baker’s twine. I looped the twine around a couple of times and tied it in the back.

You now have this wonderful all in one gift card holder with a sweet sentiment from your child. It’s the perfect way to show your appreciation.

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