How To Dress-Up Your FP Girl (FPGirl.com) Printable e-Gift Certificate

A couple of months ago, our daughter was invited to a birthday party for one of her friends who has almost everything.  Usually in that situation, I would buy the birthday girl or boy a gift certificate or gift card, but that is not always the case when the child is younger.  This girl was only turning 6 years old, but I made an exception.  I ended up purchasing an electronic gift certificate to FPGirl.com (formerly Fashion Playtes).  Normally, I would opt for a physical gift certificate or a gift card to be mailed to me, but I was uncertain I would receive this one on time, so I ended up printing one out at home instead.

Since it is not very fun for a little girl to receive a piece of paper for her birthday, I thought I would help my daughter dress the gift certificate.  You can do this easy craft with most gift certificates that you can print online.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Printed 8-1/2" x 11" gift certificate

Sheet of 9" x 12" coordinating construction paper

Printed (or solid) satin or grosgrain ribbon (Approx. 40")

Glue stick

All-purpose white glue

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Step 1.  Fold your construction paper in half.  Then do the same to your printed gift certificate, so that the printed sides are face-to-face.

Step 2.  Using the glue stick, apply glue to the blank side of the gift certificate.  Then carefully secure it to the construction paper, matching up the fold lines and making sure the amount of construction paper showing on the left, right, top, and bottom edges are even.

Step 3.  Cut a piece of ribbon about 22" long.

Step 4.  Fold the ribbon in half, then using all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon (printed side up) to the front and back of the outside of the construction paper, matching up the fold in the ribbon to the crease on the paper and bisecting the construction paper lengthwise.  (See photo above.)

Step 5.  To create something decorative for the front, I created a simple printable coloring page (about 5" x 7") by using images from the FP Girl site and a basic graphics program.  You can also just give your child a blank piece of paper to draw something from scratch and then help him or her write a birthday message.

Step 6.  Using the glue stick, adhere the 5" x 7" paper to the front of the card you created right over the ribbon, making sure that it is centered.

Step 7.  Cut 2 pieces of ribbon approximately 7-1/2" in length each.

Step 8.  Using the all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon to the front of the card, covering the top and bottom edges of the 5" x 7" piece of paper.  (NOTE:  If you choose to, you can also glue ribbon over the left and right edges also.)

Step 9.  Loosely tie the ribbon that hangs down the front and back of the card together.  (You do not want to tie it too tightly, otherwise the child might have difficulty opening it and may tear the paper.)

Step 10.  Trim the ends of the tied ribbon to the desired length either at a slant or dovetailed.


My daughter was so excited to give this special gift to her friend.  Since she loves designing clothes on the FP Girl website, she knew her friend would love it too, especially since FP Girl has a special My Little Pony section.  The gift was a huge hit and I will definitely be doing this again for her friends in the future.

Boston Blogger FashionPlaytes Photo Shoot & Fashion Show

Last Saturday, daughters of bloggers from across Massachusetts attended a special event at the corporate offices of FashionPlaytes, an online fashion design website for young girls and tweens, where they not only can design their own fashions, but their parents can purchase the clothing for them to wear.  It was intriguing to learn what new and exciting things FashionPlaytes has planned for 2012.

For this event, my nearly 5 year old daughter Makenzie was given the opportunity to design one or two fashion pieces and then was invited to show them off in a photo shoot and mini fashion show at the FashionPlaytes headquarters.

Makenzie was given a backstage pass to keep track of the various stations she needed to visit.  This made things feel very official for her and she was full of anticipation.

The first stop was at hair and make-up.  Aside from nail polish, our daughter has never experimented with make-up before.  She also had never had her very straight hair curled before.  This was a huge treat for her and she later told me that it was her favorite part of the whole afternoon.

Since there were so many possibilities on the FashionPlaytes websites, between the styles, garment colors, appliques, trims, and other embellishments, we had previously spent hours designing her pieces.  At first, she wanted to design a dress.  After creating four of them, she decided she would rather design a top.  She ended up opting for The Parker waffle knit baseball tee in Blueberry Raspberry.  We had a little money left over, so she designed The Molly drawstring sack pack to match the design on her shirt.  Makenzie currently wears a size 5T, but The Parker tee in a size 6 worked well on her because it has a 3/4 sleeve.  The sack pack was slightly too big for her because the straps are not adjustable, so she did not end up carrying it in the photo shoot or the fashion show.  She would have loved a small crossbody bag, but nothing like that is available on the website yet.

I was extremely proud of how well Makenzie did, since she had to go to wardrobe and to her photo shoot while I was off being briefed on what exciting new things are to come next year and offering feedback about our experience with FashionPlaytes thus far.

Luckily, I was able to capture the FashionPlaytes fashion show on video to share with you . . .



FashionPlaytes really gave my daughter a fun and unique experience to remember.  The event was only two hours long, but it was a whirlwind for my daughter.

After being inspired by this FashionPlaytes event, do not be surprised if you start seeing her brand "Kenzie Frenzy" on girl's fashions in the future.  Yes, the shirt she designed for herself bears this logo on the back.  One of the things we can look forward to on FashionPlaytes.com is the ability for girls to design clothing, share them with their friends in a safe social networking environment, and perhaps even being able to make them available for purchase.  We are very excited to own the very first Kenzie Frenzy creation!

Currently, girls can enjoy creating and building their fashion collections to include dresses, tops, pants, doll clothes, accessories, and more.  They can also design a model to try on their creations and decorate their own virtual room.  To learn more about FashionPlaytes, visit FashionPlaytes.com and FashionPlaytes on Facebook.  I highly recommend signing up for the FashionPlaytes Newsletter to receive all sorts of great promotional discounts and to keep up with what's new.


Thank you to FashionPlaytes, Inc for providing complimentary product samples for us to base this review upon and for hosting this fun event.