The best way to give a gift card and a hack to make it even easier

Coffee shop gift cards are a popular gift to give for so many occasions and to so very many people – co-workers, teachers, coaches, friends, neighbors, and Christmas gifts for everyone. Whether they would enjoy a hit of caffeine, hot cocoa during the chilly months, or some relaxing tea, a coffee shop gift card is an almost guaranteed winner.

Now, let's kick up the wow factor for a gift card a few notches and really impress your gift recipient with a reusable cup sleeve/cozy. These things are crazy useful if they frequent the coffee shop! Hot or cold, this is going to keep their hands comfortable and their cup extra fun.

And not only is this cup sleeve useful and cute, it's REVERSIBLE! So there are two sides and two fabrics to enjoy. The best part? The pattern and full tutorial for these genius things walks you through how to size the cup sleeve/cozy to ANY cup. Yep, any size you need. I like to give them on the Starbucks disposable paper cups which I think would be the most likely way someone would use them. You can use any cotton fabric and I like to make seasonal and holiday ones. They come together really fast and don't use very much fabric.

I love this tutorial by Jess at Oklaroots,com but I do have a quick “hack” for you to speed up the process even more and help with fabric pattern placement.

Once you're done sewing a whole collection of cup sleeves (go ahead and try to just sew one and stop. I dare you), I have free gift tags to download. There are larger ones that you can insert a gift card into, and smaller tags you can use by themselves. Either way, whomever you are gifting them to will love them.

Watch the video tutorial:

Supplies for a coffee sleeve template:

This post may contain affiliate links which means at no extra cost to you I may receive a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links.

• Continuous Coffee Sleeve pattern and tutorials

• Dollar Tree cutting board

• scissors

• Sharpie

• rotary cutter

• cutting mat

Coffee gift tags:

• Coffee tag printable down below

• card stock

• adhesive (I used a 3M Scotch ATG) or glue

• paper trimmer

• ribbon

Let's get started:

Start by printing the free patterns from Oklaroots. Pick which size of coffee sleeve you want to make and cut out both the patterns (the outer panel and fusible fleece patterns).

Using the tutorial, size the pattern to fit the cup you are using.

Once you have the sizing figured out, you can trace the paper template onto the Dollar Tree cutting board with a Sharpie.

Use scissors to cut out your new template.

I like to use the Sharpie to write all the details onto the plastic such as where to place the fabric fold and specifically what kind of cup I have sized it to so I don’t forget.

I LOVE these plastic templates for two reasons:

First, you can see through them! So, you can see what part of the fabric you will be cutting out which is useful if there are parts of your fabric pattern that you want to include (or NOT include). Before I found the cutting board hack, I struggled mightily to cut some Grinch fabric that had a lot of white space in between the designs and in the end I couldn't use some of my favorite parts of the fabric because I had cut them all wrong.

Second, the cutting board is sturdy enough that I will VERY CAREFULLY use my rotary cutter to cut out my fabric instead of tracing the pattern on and hand cutting it out. This is a huge time saver for me! Each cup cozy requires two outer panels and a piece of fusible fleece and it goes so much faster this way! But, once again, be very careful.

Coffee Gift Tag Printable:

Once you’ve sewn about 30 of these (or maybe you have more willpower than me and will only make a few), you can print out the gift tags to attach.

Click the button down below to subscribe and receive the download. For the best results, I like to print them on card stock. Cut them out, hole punch and tie them on with ribbon.

If you want to include a gift card, also cut out the grayish rectangles on the page with the tags and use adhesive or glue to adhere three sides of the rectangle to the back of the larger tag. These creates a pocket. Insert a gift card to your favorite coffee shop and they are ready to give away!

These make really great gifts. I love to sew a few seasonal/holiday coffee sleeves and give the recipient a set of them.

Subscribe to receive the download

Happy crafting!