Recyling Christmas Cards - ideas from someone who is not crafty

What do you do with all the Christmas cards you receive? Ours have been hanging in the kitchen, but now it is time to take them down. I hate to throw them away. Friends and family have spent their money (not to mention time) on these. They are beautiful and certainly worthy of reuse.

I am far from a craft queen. Most of my crafts have either been done with the kids or at social events, such as the ladies craft night our church used to have. Even so, I will share what this noncrafty person can do with Christmas cards.

First, I remove any pictures. This year I am hanging them on the side of my fridge in a collage. This will help me think of and pray for our friends and family through the year. It will also be nice to compare with next year's photos when they come. Then all the cards get put in a drawer for future use.

Kid's crafts
The kids usually end up using most of the cards for their creative efforts. They cut out the pictures and sometimes the words to create new cards or pictures. They have a lot of fun doing this. If you make your own cards, I would think you could do the same for your adult creations.

Name tags
Another thing we have done is create name tags from the cards. Cut out the picture on the card that you want to use. Write your "to" and "from" on the back. Punch a hole in the top of the picture and attach the name tag with ribbon.


Ball ornament
I am not sure if this ornament has a name. The picture is of one that I made at a ladies craft night. It is a little time consuming, but pretty easy. This one is made from colored card stock, but I remember my grandmother making these out of Christmas cards.

Cut 20 circles of the same size. Draw a triangle on the circle whose corners are on the edge of the circle. Use a pattern cut out of cardboard to keep the circles and triangles the same size. Fold on the triangle lines. (Fold so that when the paper is lying on the table the folds stand up and you can't see the pencil marks.) Then glue the folded edges together. Punch a hole in one of the edges and hang with ribbon.


Need some more ideas?

Michelle at Scribbit posted a neat craft for making tiny boxes from cards. Now, she is a crafting queen.

More ideas can be found at About:Family Crafts, or at Activity Village. Check out some of these ideas and reuse those Christmas cards.