I recently offered to provide a hand-made gift for an auction that would be part of a fundraising event. And of course what would I choose, but a selection of cards?!? The committee had in mind a dozen all-occasion cards, so that's what I prepared…. along with the gift box shown here. The Designer Series Paper you see on the box is retired, but these types of applications offer me the opportunity to use up some of my stash.

As you can imagine, 12 different card designs with coordinating lined envelopes – each set individually packaged in a clear sleeve, took (shall we say), "a bit of time", and I was so intensely focused on getting this project ready to deliver by the deadline that it didn't even occur to me to try to get pix of the cards.  But I did snap a couple pix of the box, even if not great ones.

For any basic box that is likely to be handled over and over again, I often like to use a "belly band" to hold it closed. For my belly bands, I usually custom wrap a length of cardstock around the box, and then wrap that with a layer of two of contrasting DSP. And depending on the style, I'll usually add some type of focal point on top.  In this case, I just stamped the words (from the stamp set "Hello There"….. host-exclusive set, page 237 of the Annual Catalog) with Versamark ink, and then heat embossed with Silver embossing powder. The words "Hello There" seemed particularly appropriate to me.

I then pulled out my favorite Framelits set "Circles Collection" (don't you agree that's GOT to be the  greatest workhorse of our entire collection of Framelits?!?), and found just the perfect size. Mounted that on top of one of our doilies and added a coordinating bow – made from Crisp Cantaloupe thick twine. Sure hope it goes to someone who appreciates the concept of "handmade", lol.