Friday Fave Ways to Recycle Christmas Cards Free Printable!

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     I don't know if you are like me, but after I get all of the trappings of Christmas taken down and put away, I still have a pile of Christmas cards to deal with.  Many of them are so beautiful, I hate to throw them away, and in the spirit of living a little greener, I like to try to recycle them.  So, today, we will share some of our favorite ways!  If you have any ideas to add, please let us know, we are always looking for new ideas! 

Friday Faves #87-Favorite Ways to Recycle Christmas Cards! 

1.    For years, one of my favorite things to do with the Christmas Cards we receive is to make gift tags for next year.  It is fun to cut out the cute motifs and the handmade cards are especially cute to use on packages.  Just remember to put them in a place where you will find them next Christmas! 

2.     Of course, if we receive photo cards of family and loved ones, I like to put them in a photo album.  It is fun to see how the families have grown year after year. 

3.   One year, on Everyday Reading, I found this really cute banner idea.  Janssen used the photo cards she received to make a Valentine Banner.  It was so cute.  Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to cut the photo cards, but there were a lot of really cute cards that I used instead. I used a thicker version of baker's twine to make the banner. 

I loved using this handmade card with its newsprint and ribbon. The back was red so I just overlapped from front to back.

I love these little puppies on the card from my niece with the little bit of plain on the bottom.

This was actually from a thank you note, but I loved this little hedgehog face.

I used two different sizes of heart cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. 

4.   A really awesome gift for young kids next Christmas, or a way to add to the Spirit of Christmas around the house,  would be a book using the pictures from the cards.  One year I made a Christmas ABC Book using Christmas Cards.  It can be tricky coming up with a picture for every letter, but my friend had a poem that she shared with me to help me out.  Unfortunately for this post, I gave that book away.  But I got to thinking that it would be really cool to use the song "C is for the Christ Child" by Jim Reeves as the text for the book.  If you have enough Christmas cards, you can make more than one!  I put together a free printable of ideas for making this book. 

Here is the PDF file to make printing easier: 

Christmas Card Book Ideas

    It would be awesome to include the CD of the song with the book as well! 

     So, hopefully you can find a way to recycle those Christmas cards and get the last vestiges of Christmas put away.  And, won't it be great knowing that you have a gift for the little ones, gift tags to use when wrapping and something to decorate with for Valentine's Day!  Now that is thinking ahead!