How to Use Last Year's Christmas Cards

How to use last year’s Christmas cards – that is if you have saved last year’s Christmas cards. I’m a saver so I know for sure that I have last year’s cards as well as several more years’ cards stashed away somewhere. I know I put them somewhere for safe keeping, just in case I want to use them for something. O.K. this is the year that I vow to do something creative with all of those beautiful cards!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Last year’s Christmas cards
• Scissors
• Yarn
• Poster Board
• Glitter
• Ribbon

1. The first thing that I have to do is find them. After searching high and low for them I found them in the most logical place; they were in with last year’s wrapping paper! “Oh, look, here’s Aunt Sophie’s Christmas letter and I forgot about the picture of the kids,” I mutter to myself. “I better go through these before they become my next craft project. All of the family pictures really need to go into that box of pictures that I’ve been meaning to put in the album,” I think to myself.

2. “There, that’s better. I’ve taken out all of the Christmas letters and pictures,” I say out loud. I’ve decided that there are several great uses for all of these beautiful cards. So, after a lot of consideration I’ve decided to use them in the following ways:
   
   1. The tall slender cards – I will cut those down and use my hole punch and make bookmarks – great stocking stuffers! Oh, and I’ll need some yarn for a tassel for the bookmark.
   2. I am also going to make some gift tags from them – all I have to do is cut them to the right size and use the hole punch again.
   3. I also read about how someone made them into postcards and sent them as Christmas postcards – now that’s really recycling!

3. “I still have a lot of cards left over,” I say softly. “I have a great idea! My granddaughter is coming over tonight, she would love cutting out the trees, reindeer, snowmen, and the Santa’s and making a picture for her Mom and Dad,” I think to myself.

4. “Still some cards left. I didn’t know I had so many old Christmas cards!” I still have a couple more creative ideas! I’ll decorate a small tabletop tree using cut out teddy bears, snowmen, reindeer, and angels from the cards! And, what ever cards are left I am going to get a large poster board, cut out the shape of a wreath, decorate the wreath with the holiday pictures, use some glitter, attach a bow, and I have a beautiful decorative wreath

Tips & Warnings

• You can probably come up with your own creative ways to use last year’s Christmas cards; these are just a few of my ideas.
• If you have children or grandchildren these would be great activities for them during the busy holiday season. And, what a great “green” idea! That is if you can find last year’s Christmas cards and if you can bear to cut them up.
• After giving it a lot of thought I’ve decided maybe this isn’t the year that I will be creative. Maybe I should just hold on to them for another year – they are just too beautiful to cut up! Back they go with the wrapping paper…