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A couple of months ago, our daughter was invited to a birthday party for one of her friends who has almost everything.  Usually in that situation, I would buy the birthday girl or boy a gift certificate or gift card, but that is not always the case when the child is younger.  This girl was only turning 6 years old, but I made an exception.  I ended up purchasing an electronic gift certificate to FPGirl.com (formerly Fashion Playtes).  Normally, I would opt for a physical gift certificate or a gift card to be mailed to me, but I was uncertain I would receive this one on time, so I ended up printing one out at home instead.

Since it is not very fun for a little girl to receive a piece of paper for her birthday, I thought I would help my daughter dress the gift certificate.  You can do this easy craft with most gift certificates that you can print online.

Step 1.  Fold your construction paper in half.  Then do the same to your printed gift certificate, so that the printed sides are face-to-face.

Step 2.  Using the glue stick, apply glue to the blank side of the gift certificate.  Then carefully secure it to the construction paper, matching up the fold lines and making sure the amount of construction paper showing on the left, right, top, and bottom edges are even.


Step 3.  Cut a piece of ribbon about 22" long.

Step 4.  Fold the ribbon in half, then using all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon (printed side up) to the front and back of the outside of the construction paper, matching up the fold in the ribbon to the crease on the paper and bisecting the construction paper lengthwise.  (See photo above.)

Step 5.  To create something decorative for the front, I created a simple printable coloring page (about 5" x 7") by using images from the FP Girl site and a basic graphics program.  You can also just give your child a blank piece of paper to draw something from scratch and then help him or her write a birthday message.

Step 6.  Using the glue stick, adhere the 5" x 7" paper to the front of the card you created right over the ribbon, making sure that it is centered.


Step 7.  Cut 2 pieces of ribbon approximately 7-1/2" in length each.

Step 8.  Using the all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon to the front of the card, covering the top and bottom edges of the 5" x 7" piece of paper.  (NOTE:  If you choose to, you can also glue ribbon over the left and right edges also.)


Step 9.  Loosely tie the ribbon that hangs down the front and back of the card together.  (You do not want to tie it too tightly, otherwise the child might have difficulty opening it and may tear the paper.)

Step 10.  Trim the ends of the tied ribbon to the desired length either at a slant or dovetailed.


My daughter was so excited to give this special gift to her friend.  Since she loves designing clothes on the FP Girl website, she knew her friend would love it too, especially since FP Girl has a special My Little Pony section.  The gift was a huge hit and I will definitely be doing this again for her friends in the future.