Don't throw away your old Christmas cards

Caterina

I have a friend who was confined to bed for a long time due to an illness and she spent a lot of the time making creative things.

One of those was cutting the fronts of all her Christmas cards and writing inspirational messages behind them, taken from religious texts, mainly the Bible as she is a Christian, but also from other sources.

The full collection is now kept in a large biscuit tin and one of her guests' and visitors' favourite things to do when they visit her is to pick one card and read the message - it is surprising how often these messages have a personalised meaning for the person that picks them!

Caterina

beemuzed

I have a friend who covered an old screen with cutouts from Christmas cards, varnished the whole thing and then it became a real talking point for ages! Me, I've done the gift tag thing - the kids used to love doing this - but now tend to just recycle.

tawnyowls

kazstevens wrote:

or just send them to the recycling bin?

Well, you can, but then they're just any old paper. A lot of charities will take them and make new ones from them, which is a better way of using them. I noticed our local Tesco has a recycling container from the Woodland Trust instore, so will probably send mine there.

bizzylizzy

WANDA wrote:

I always use them to make toppers for next years christmas cards with those designs that are suitable and recycle the others for charity. Keeps me quiet for a while and love fiddling for an hour or two!

I have always used last year's cards to make this year's gift tags but I now have so many that I am keeping them from year to year, only adding to them and not using them all up. :rolleyes:
What do you use for the base of your cards? How much does it cost? I always buy boxes of cards from the supermarket to keep the price down but I like the idea of making new cards from old ones.

Katgoddess

I've cut up my old Christmas cards to be used in the crèche at my work next year. I've cut out pictures with pinking shears, and pretty borders and greetings into strips. Any other bit of the card that is shiny or patterned has been cut into small squares. The children then use the pictures to make cards for parents or collages. The old cards make more interesting designs than the collage pack we buy.

For cheap cards and envelopes in bulk, try here.

bommer

Have done some as gift tags for next year but never thought of using them as the basis for new handmade cards. Have still got family card up so will use them.

On an MSE note while I was cutting up the cards my sister asked what I was doing. When I said making gift tags for next year she said why? So I said well how much did she pay for her tags - 99p was the reply. Well I said I've just saved myself 99p then!

Folio

Interested to read some of you cut round your cards with pinking shears - are they 'real' ones? I know that sounds a daft question, but my gran drummed it into me that if you used your pinking shears to cut anything other than fabric they would soon be blunt and useless for their proper purpose of cutting fabric - and since they cost a fortune I would never dare use them on paper or card ---- but I love the idea of how it would look :T

LJM

ours will also be recycled into tags for 2007 christmas presents

little_lil

Folio wrote:

Interested to read some of you cut round your cards with pinking shears - are they 'real' ones? I know that sounds a daft question, but my gran drummed it into me that if you used your pinking shears to cut anything other than fabric they would soon be blunt and useless for their proper purpose of cutting fabric - and since they cost a fortune I would never dare use them on paper or card ---- but I love the idea of how it would look :T

We have some childrens craft scissors that produce the same effect as pinking shears (we too used to make the labels using my mums when we were kids). I think you can get craft ones from partners stationers.

lil

sheng719

I have found another way of recycling old cards....as people seem to be spending on christmas baskets...https://www.allfreecrafts.com has showed hoe to turn old xmas cards to christmas baskets...So that's another Idea or reason not to get rid of your pld xmas cards...:p