I love gift cards. Some people don’t like receiving them because they think they’re just a last minute lazy gift, but let it be known that I will take any and all gift cards you want to gift to me. Especially ones to Target and Amazon.

However, I do understand that opening a gift card doesn’t have the same effect as opening a present and so when I give gift cards, I like to either theme it around something or package it in a creative way.

I’m not sure why, but I came with the strange idea of making miniature versions of my kids’ school folders that their schools provided for them and using it as a gift card holder. But the folder by itself would be too boring, so I searched the internet high and low for a mini backpack that would fit a gift card. I eventually found some on the Wish app that was affordable, yet cute. Everything else I made using my home printer and other supplies I had already.

Items in the backpack:

• Brown lunch bag: I made this from an actual brown paper lunch bag
• Fritos bag: I found an image of the front and back of a Fritos bag and printed it out small on sticker paper and then stuck it on a mini Snickers bar
• Composition book: I bought a cheap thin notebook from Daiso that had black binding, and cut it down to size (about 1.5″). Then I printed out a sticker that looked like a typical composition book and put it on the front. Technically that is a usable book!
• Folder: I created a template in Illustrator that was a scale replica of an actual folder, printed it on card stock, and then cut it with an X-acto knife and glued it together.
• Gift cards: To Starbucks and Target. I designed the folder dimensions to fit the gift cards perfectly.
• Backpack: These were very affordable on the Wish app but you have to be sure to order well in advance because stuff can take up to a month to arrive. Luckily mine arrived in about 2 weeks.

Lastly, here is a video of me “unboxing” the backpack if you want to see it up close 🙂