who needs a template

For my birthday (way back when) I received a gift card in a cute little "purse" holder. My mind started whirling about the possibilities of making one of these cuties myself. I poked around to see how it was put together. It seemed it would be easy enough to undo the glue to make my own template.

I put it in my craft area and forgot about it for a little while. Until the other day. I needed a gift card holder and my eye happened to wander over to this. Ah ha! I'll just whip one of these out. I should have been worried right there at the thought I could whip out anything.

I took it apart. Easy enough. I laid it on an old folder and started tracing for my template. This was so easy. I'd be done in no time. Then I traced my new template on some pretty red cardstock. Cut, fold, done. Right? No way. When it was folded, parts of it didn't meet up the right way. I checked and rechecked it against the original purse. I made all my folds in the right places. 

Then I got out the ruler. The measurements on the red piece were not the same as the measurements on the original. Now, since I had traced it, I didn't know how that could be. So based on the measurements, I refolded the red one, made a new cut here and there, and eventually got it to work. But it was mangled. No problem, I'll just trace another one. 

So I retraced the original to make a new template because surely my tracing skills would be better the second time around. Confident this would work, I smiled to myself while I traced and cut the template. I even hummed a little tune as I traced and cut another red one. As I scored the fold lines I imagined how I would be embellishing this little beauty. I folded with flair ~ only to find out it didn't work. It didn't line up again. Frustrated, I threw it to the side to find something else to do. No humming. No smiling. 

You're probably asking yourself why I didn't use the first mangled red one to trace again. Good question. Didn't think of that at the time. 

So I looked around my craft area and found a template for a library card pocket. That's a good plan, I thought. If I can't make my own template, I'll use someone else's. This time everything lined up ok. But something about it wasn't right. So I threw that one into the pile of misfit crafts as well.

Oh! Then I remember the little tins I bought a while ago (maybe even a looong time ago) with the intention of scrapping or painting on them for gift card holders. I grabbed one of those and proceeded with gusto again. There was joy in my crafty heart again.

Ta da! This time my project turned out beautifully.