Recycling Old Christmas Cards

Christmas season is just around the corner and everyone is busy preparing for the festivities. While some are gathering the decorations for the houses and the offices, others are busy sending Christmas greeting cards to their loved ones. Everybody likes receiving and giving these pretty Christmas greeting cards. Christmas cards collection is a cherished passion for many of us and just like albums, many of us love to go through letters and cards that we have received in the past and relive the memories of some of the happiest times in our lives. However, with homes getting smaller and our lives getting busier, it is more advisable to make better use of those old cards and recycle and fashion them into other beautiful things rather than just stacking them up and letting them collect dust. Stacking these greetings cards in boxes is only a different type of waste paper dumping. Instead, we can put these old greeting cards in several better usages. These measures will not only help us in protecting our environment but will also save a fraction of our hard earned money. The following suggestions can be used to give your old yet pretty Christmas cards a new look:

You can cut out pretty pictures from the Christmas cards and punch a hole at their top. Then put a ribbon through the holes and make a loop. These will make pretty Christmas ornaments for your tree.

You can also decorate your Christmas card ornaments by gluing pretty laces and ribbons around their edges. Then you can also outline the pictures using sparkles.

Cutouts from old Christmas cards can be used to make delightful and creative gift tags. Leave some space around the picture when you cut it so that you can write messages there.

In case your pictures are cut closely, you can take small pieces of colored papers folded into half. Paste these pictures on the outside and use the inside of these small gift tags to write the messages.

You can also make display collages from some of the loveliest Christmas cards you have in your collection. Get some heavy paper to support the pictures that fit into the chosen frame. Arrange the pictures well and decide how to put them before gluing them down. Try to cover the paper completely and paint the little spaces that are left to give them a beautiful background. These collages can serve as gifts to friends or just decorate your desolate corner and add to the festive decor this Christmas.

The old Christmas greeting cards can be used to frame photos. Generally we find a frame too big for a particularly well-liked photograph. Here is an easy way of putting these greeting cards into use. Place the photograph in the middle of a greeting card with very colorful and attractive designs. This way you can add a few extra inches to any photograph and then can use it in the frame.

Christmas greeting cards generally have unwritten back parts. You can cut out the backs of these old Christmas cards to make postcards.