10th Birthday fun and a cute money holder!

A few days ago, my youngest baby turned 10 - double digits!! It's hard to believe! I wanted to share the card I made him, and also a money-gift holder.

The card uses stamps and dies from PTI and MFT, and some fun, boyish patterned paper from Echo Park - A Boy's Life.

The "10th" and the patterned "birthday" are both popped up on foam adhesive (yes, I painstakingly cut little bits of foam tape for the small letters, lol). The "it's your day" at the bottom wasn't part of my original plan, but I accidentally cut the pattern paper block too short so that was my solution - a happy accident, because I really like how it turned out!

Here is the money holder that I made with PTI's zipper border die. I will show you step-by-step how I made it, below.

First I cut a piece of the PTI Hawaiian Shores striped patterned paper 7.5"x7.5". You could use any paper, patterned or stamped. I liked this paper and it worked great - a good weight, and it is white on the reverse side. I scored the paper at 2" and at 4 7/8". NOTE: when scoring, think about the direction you want the pattern to go on the final envelope.

Now I folded the 2" piece under, and then placed the zipper border on the other side (the single-layer side), just eyeballing it to leave some space to the edge and being very careful that it was straight! Then run it through the die cut machine.

This is what the piece should look like at this point. Note that I intentionally put the start of the zipper on the right side because my little guy is left handed. It probably doesn't really matter much, but I do think that for a right-handed recipient, the zipper would be a little easier to manage if it zipped from left to right. I also used my craft knife to cut open the little connected pieces on the first "tab" of the zipper, just to make it a easier to get started (without ripping anything).

I choose to embellish both sides of the envelope. On the zipper side I added a simple border with sentiment and the "pull here" stamping.

On the back, I used the new PTI Big Ticket Basics.

Now, fold up the inside flap and adhere on the two sides. Put the money in, and then add adhesive to the zipper flap, just below the zipper, and seal the envelope closed.

This is what the final product looks like. The recipient then gets to rip that zipper open and see the bills inside. This same design could easily be modified to hold a gift card, too!

Well, that's it. I hope the extra pictures were helpful! Thanks for stopping by!