Gorgeous Gift Wallet

 Giving money is thought, by some, to be lacking in thought.  However, I like it since it gives the recipient free reign to spend it wherever they want rather than being tied to a particular store with a gift card.  One of my colleagues managed to get married last year so the watch had a collection for him and his new wife.  Quite a substantial sum was collected and we didn’t want to present it in a tatty white envelope, so I was asked to make a presentation wallet.

Making a presentation wallet (of any size) is fairly straight forward but needs a bit of planning out.  To begin, the finished size and depth is required to draw up a plan view.  This will help determine if your box can be cut from one sheet of card or not.  This is my plan for the box I made which was 3¾” x 5⅝” x ¼”.  Once the front, back and pocket sections are added, together with the top, base and sides (for the depth), the next thing is to work out where the tabs need to go in order to glue the box together.

I don’t usually go to the trouble of drawing my plan out to scale, it usually looks like the sketch in the top of the next photo!  After scoring all the lines, I then used these as guides for cutting away the excess card, which left me with this.

I cut pieces of DSP to decorate the panels and also added a thin magnet underneath the pocket panel.  A magnetic closure always makes a gift wallet feel that bit more special!

Once all the decorative panels were in place, I dropped the other magnet onto the front of the wallet.  It was naturally drawn into the correct place, where I added a spot of glue under it.

To cover the magnet, I then made a focal panel from layered ovals, the bride and groom’s initials and some hearts.  I gave the metallic paper some added interest by dry embossing it. I added a polka dot tulle bow as the magnet was just visible.

It’s not shown here but I added a white panel on the back of the front cover (the part at the top of this photo) on which I wrote the message from the watch.

I was really pleased to get a message from the couple saying that they loved the personalised gift wallet.  Feedback like that makes creating bespoke gifts all the more rewarding!