The ever-lasting Christmas cards

So all my family and friends know I'm quite the hoarder. December or Christmas time is no difference. Every year I add to my collection of cards and look through all the ones I have, some as early as year 2 or 1 where my fellow pupils wrote my name as Analiyse rather than Annelies.

Those cards with particularly nice designs or inpersonal messages I like to cut up. I'll cut off the front, and perhaps the printed message of "Merry Christmas" inside and perhaps a picture (if applicable) on the back.

This blog post is going to be some things I do with them every year to save money but also let my creative side out and change a bit from essay writing!

1. Bookmarks

You can either make your own bookmarks out of paper and then cut little pictures out from your cards or do what I did in the picture below which is to cut a card out directly into bookmark shapes. If the Christmas card isn't very thick then you can easily add some cardboard behind it or another strip of Christmas card to the back.

2. Present tags

This is easy to do. My dad had some spare from his business which I used for a quick (and I mean quick) model. I cut out a simplistic white card for this model so I could cut around the shapes quickly and the background would camouflage with the white tag.

I have seen some that again, cut directly from the card so they are flexible in the shapes they make.

3. To:.... From:......

Every year I receive some free stickers from the Red Cross with a little picture and "To: From:" written on them but I find that they don't suffice for the number of presents I have. I use sweet Christmas cards to do these myself (in the past as a child I just used to write my Christmas message on the back but now 18 I can't get away with that) so I use them like this instead:

4. Jar toppers

Although I haven't made anything jar related this year this is always a nice thing to do if you are making something with a jar: body scrub, handmade candle, kids money box etc. It's just a way to remind them it's festive and to make it Christmas related (if the object isn't)!

5. Wrapping paper

Of course this is something rough made by me and my brother in about 10 seconds, but if you were to take your time you could add colour by using paint etc. or stick the card so it was only glued on at the top so if you lift it up (like a flap) you can have a personalised message underneath.

Hope you enjoyed this post and that you can make use of your new collection of christmas cards for next year! Remember I did this super quickly but if taking the time will get you some gorgeous results and save you money... what's to lose?

The Frugal Teen