Starbucks Card Upgrade

Hi friends,

Working has certainly taken its toll on my little blog here.  I hope after the holidays I can really come up with a system to keep posting more regularly.  We’ll see…

Onto my project…  I actually did this just before Halloween, but the backstory goes back even further.  I have a former student who I taught at school, and I also taught him piano lessons.  I met him in 2002 when I started my current job.  This year he started acting school at NYU.  Talk about a reality check- did you know that everyone grows up? It’s amazing, though, to watch a student grow into such an amazing person- he really is someone to be proud of.

Anyhoo, I procrastinated about giving him a graduation gift.  Then I bought the gift… and it sat for a little too long in my purse.  I’m amazed I didn’t use it instead, because I love me some Starbucks.  But I wanted to make sure he got something relatively funny and special to make up for the fact that his gift was totally late and not really that creative.  So I made over his Starbucks card.

Remember college?  If you went to college, I bet you wish you had an endless Starbucks card for those mornings when you wake up and need.  Coffee.  Immediately.  I harkened back to a day when I slept through an exam.  Actually, come to think of it, I graduated from college in 1998 and I don’t think I had been in a Starbucks more than 2 or 3 times.  I digress…

So first I hopped onto Photoshop and designed the new front for his card.

This is often how I feel in the morning, even though our budget doesn’t allow for Starbucks nearly as often as I’d like.

Then I slapped it onto the card- this was easy- I just tried to make sure the layer of Mod Podge was super thin because I didn’t want it to thicken the card up too much.

Then I traced the card holder to make it match.  I had to trace the holder both directions- a good lesson in spatial awareness.  🙂  I also had to make sure I traced the little notches, and I cut them with a razor knife before MPing.

Then I Mod Podged that sucker up as well.  Here’s the final product.  Note that I poked fun at myself for taking so long.  And you’ll probably see that the Mod Podge smeared the ink on my card- I did a thin coat on top and it did sort of “fog it up” but I sort of liked it, and also didn’t want to delay sending an already-late gift just because of some smeared ink.

I think I will do this again for Starbucks gifts- it was fun, easy, and once I got my rear in gear, a fun way to perk up an otherwise totally expected gift.