Christmas Cards

ornament or tree topper from a Christmas card - instructions

In an age of email wedding invitations and texted break up messages I really really appreciate receiving a real Christmas card with a hand written signature. It's one of the things I love about Christmas. When my girls were little they would take turns designing the family Christmas card, which I would color copy at Kinko's. I still cherish those cards! But you can't hang on to that stuff forever (although I do still have them, but wouldn't expect everyone else to keep them!). So, what to do with these symbols and sentiments? 

In the past I've reused them to make little TO/FROM cards for gifts. (Why buy when you already have such lovely patterns?) For a few years everyone sent us their cards received and the next Christmas we took them to a nursing home and decorated the doors of each of the residents. And this year, I learned to make the ornament in the picture above, from Pinterest of course! I used them to decorate the tree, but also in lieu of bows on gifts. 

I checked out some ideas on the interwebs and liked these the most:

• cut them up and turn them into place cards for the holiday table
• make into a recipe card to go with the plate of treats you're giving (you know they will ask you for the recipe anyway!)
• cut the front off and turn the folding card into a postcard (cheaper to mail!) 
• decorate the top of a mason jar full of treats

I got these ideas from 5 ways to upcycle holiday cards and 10 crafty ways to upcycle old greeting cards. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and I challenge you to save, reuse, or at least recycle all your cards this year!