Crafts for Old Christmas Cards

Basic Crafts for Old Christmas Cards

Finding crafts for old Christmas cards doesn't have to be difficult. One of the easiest ways to reuse your favorite cards is to turn them into inexpensive handmade holiday decorations.

Christmas Tree Ornaments

What better way to reuse your favorite Christmas cards than by turning them into pretty ornaments for your tree? All Free Crafts has a pattern that's easy enough for your children to help with. You can also make simple ornaments for your tree by adhering circles cut from greeting cards to sturdy pieces of craft foam and adding a ribbon hanger to the top.

Decorate Your Table

Another great way to recycle old Christmas cards is to use them to decorate your holiday table. When your friends and family come over to visit, they'll have a blast trying to pick out their cards from your designs!

• Make large collages from your favorite greeting cards, then have them laminated to use as easy-to-clean placemats for your Christmas dinner.
• Cut out designs from the front part of your favorite cards, then adhere the images to cardstock scraps to make place cards for your table.
• Make tiny origami boxes from your favorite cards, then fill each one with a piece of candy or a small treat for party guests.
• Design a pretty greeting card basket and fill it with colorful ornaments or candy canes to make a cute centerpiece for your table.

Holiday Recipe Book

For many people, Christmas brings to mind images of family dinners and delicious holiday treats. Use your leftover Christmas cards to make a homemade recipe book. Simply cut the front part of your cards down to 4x6 rectangles, then neatly print your favorite recipes on the back side.

More Christmas Craft Ideas

If you're ready to move beyond the basics, Christmas cards can be used for decoupage, card making, and scrapbooking.

Decoupage

Old Christmas cards make great material for decoupage projects. Check out our article on How to Decoupage, then get to work making these fun projects:

• Use the cards to decorate large wooden letters to spell JOY, NOEL, or another popular holiday saying.
• Decorate a wooden serving tray with holiday designs.
• Use the cards to make a collage on the front of a keepsake box.
• Decoupage a design onto the front of a glass jar, then tie a ribbon around the top. You can use the container as a candle holder or a candy jar.

Card Making

Commercially made greeting cards are rather expensive, but it's not always practical to make a handmade card for every occasion. Luckily, it's easy to save time and money by turning last year's Christmas cards into new designs to share with your friends and family. Simply cut out the sayings and images, then paste them into new backgrounds made from folded cardstock. Embellish with glitter, stickers, ribbon, buttons, rubber stamps, or other accents to give your new design a more personal touch.

Scrapbooking

If you love to scrapbook, you can make a layout or mini-album featuring your favorite Christmas cards. This is a wonderful way to preserve photo greeting cards or cards which have holiday newsletters from your loved ones.

Another great way to reuse your favorite greetings is to cut out interesting elements of the cards to use as tags and other embellishments on your scrapbooking layouts. You can find more great Christmas scrapbooking ideas on the LoveToKnow Scrapbooking Web site.

Get into the Holiday Spirit

Whether you're looking for Christmas decorations, Christmas music, or Christmas gift ideas, you'll find all the tips you need to have an unforgettable holiday at LTK Christmas.