I mean, everyone else seems to be talking about the New Year (goals, resolutions, etc.) or have even moved beyond that, but I'm still a bit stuck on Christmas. So, please don't tell me I'm too late. Please don't tell me you've already pitched those Christmas cards into the recycle bin. Pretty pleeeease.....
A few weeks ago, I shared my method for displaying the Christmas cards we received this year and I promised to offer you some suggestions of what to do with all those treasured cards after Christmas. Obviously, there may be some special cards that you store away for safekeeping, but here are a few ideas of what to do with the others....
1) Many of our friends and family send photo cards. I can't bear to throw their smiling faces in the trash, so I trim away the "card" part, saving their photo and/or faces and display them on our fridge. When next year rolls around, I replace the old ones with the new!
2) The more traditional cards (without the photos), can be cut down the fold to make sweet little thank you cards that your children can write in and/or sign (adding a drawing if they like) and send to friends or family who gave them gifts.
3) Another idea to ponder is storing your cards in a basket on your dining room table. Each evening meal time, pray for the family or individual who sent you the card on top. Pray for their health, their relationship with God, that they would hear God's call for their life, for their children, their jobs, their marriage. Then, tuck their card to the bottom so your all set to pray for the next person/family who sent you the next card on the pile.
4) Toddlers love looking at pictures of people, particularly those they know or that you'd like them to know if you live far away from family and friends. Simply stapling the photo cards together to make a book or cutting them to fit a small, inexpensive brag book can be the perfect way to let them look at photos of loved ones and learn their names. I kept little brag books like this for our older two kids when they were small (Miriam still looks at Sam's and Sadie's) and they love them. Pin It
My daughter is in a postcard exchange so we are cutting our traditional Christmas cards down to a 4x6 size to use as postcards next holiday season.
ReplyDeletethanks ,good idea's
ReplyDeleteSweet ideas Jane! Thank you for sharing. :) I *recycle* the cards by trimming and re-purposing too...it seems to make them live on, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
Blessings,
Camille
Some really good ideas - I especially like the idea of keeping a basket on the table to pray over friends over the year. The past few years I have trimmed the pictures and elements from more traditional cards to use for next Christmas as gift tags or as small cards to give out during the season.
ReplyDeleteI found this via Pinterest, and thought it was a very neat idea for storing & displaying old cards. I'm not very crafty, but might even do this :) Basically, you make an album of all the cards for an event. You can then open and read all of them again and again.
ReplyDeletehttp://somethingturquoise.com/2011/11/11/diy-card-mini-album/
Like Rebecca I trim pictures from the non-photo cards I receive and repurpose them into gift tags. Using pinking shears makes them look cute and special and less "recycled."
ReplyDeleteMy refrigerator is my "prayer wall" where I put the Christmas card photos of loved ones. The "regular" Christmas cards are kept until the following year then trimmed with patterned scissors and the fronts used as gift tags.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to have you back posting, I've missed your lovely messages ;)
ReplyDeleteI especially loved your idea for cards about placing them in a basket and praying for those that sent them!!! I think we will do that this year. Another thing I have done in the past is to make Christmas "ornaments" from the cards but punching a hole in them and tying with yarn or ribbon.
Have a wonderful day!
thanks for these ideas! I just took down our cards today and they are sitting in a pile waiting for me to deal with them.
ReplyDeleteI've made cute little boxes out of cards in the past - nice for a jewelry gift next Christmas.
In the 50"s, when I was a child, my Mother would save all our Christmas cards in a kitchen drawer. Each Monday she would pull out a card,put it on the refridgerator and use it to list grocery items,piece goods needs or general shopping items. The Card stock cards would hold up all week and be put in her purse on Sat when we made the weekly trip to town.Next Monday-next card!
ReplyDelete