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These easy-to-make business-card cases are great Christmas presents for your mother, sister, or best friend. Katie Hatch, fashion editor, made a set for the entire Blueprint staff last year.

Card Case How-To
If you want to try making some, Katie promises you'll be shocked at just how easy it is.

1. Print out the template. The pattern is already sized to fit standard business cards. If you want something bigger (say, 3-by-5 photos), feel free to enlarge the template on a photocopier.

2. Cut out pattern and trace it onto leather. Kaufman Shoe Repair in New York (212-777-1700) has a great selection of kidskin hides in beautiful colors. Using a mini hole-punch (the kind scrapbookers like), make small holes at three of the tips, as shown on the pattern. The top hole will be slightly larger to accommodate the button stud front closure.

2. Fold the leather into an envelope shape: Bring the left and right flaps inward and line up the holes. Hold them together with a great little piece of hardware called a button-stud. Katie gets hers, the screw-back type, from Pacific Trimming (email: pacifictrimming@aol.com; fax 212-268-0531).

3. Insert the back piece of the button-stud up through the holes in the flaps. Finally, screw on the front piece of the button-stud, and push it through the hole on the top flap.

First Published: November/December 2007