I have the urge to keep everything - including greeting cards. But let's be honest, you pile them into a shoebox and never look at them, and the next time you move you toss them all out anyway! Here's a couple of ways to hang on to them without putting yourself at risk of becoming a hoarder.
Bind cards into a book
This is what I did with all of the beautiful cards we got for our wedding, and I included my bridal shower cards. I used this fantastic tutorial from tortagialla.com to bind the cards together, with the only alteration being that instead of putting several sheets of paper together to form a "signature", one card is one signature. As long as everything is centered, it'll still look book-like even though your pages will all be different sizes. For cards that are oddly shaped, you can still bind it by taping it onto a folded piece of cardstock that is big enough to bind.This is what the finished product looks like:
This would be great for other once-in-a-lifetime occasions: baby showers, graduations, etc.
Ornaments
What to do with all those gorgeous holiday cards you get every winter? Turn them into ornaments! This tutorial from Martha Stewart takes some time to do, but the end result is totally worth it:
I like to strategically place the circles to capture not only the prettiest parts of the front of the card, but also some of the handwritten note on the inside. Use ribbon scraps that coordinate with the colors on the card, too.
What about you guys - what do you do with your old greeting cards?? I'd love to hear from you!
Finally, we close today with a glamourshot of Casper, courtesy my buddy DMo!
Thanks! I keep all my cards & letters in boxes. And I don't throw them out when moving, so I basically hoard and hoard and hoard. Are the ornaments easy to store? Do you recommend making books for non-events, like general holiday cards? How about letters? And is it easy to add to a book once you've bound it?
ReplyDeleteWahoo thanks for my first comment ever!! The ornaments are fairly sturdy but might get crushed under a lot of weight, so I store them in my big ornament storage box with lots of little compartments. They would definitely take up more space than binding into a book, which would totally work for "non-events" :) Once the book is bound, it would be pretty hard to bind in additional pages to it...I had forgotten a few cards with mine so I just stuck them in there without binding them in. But the nice thing about binding the cards is you can display it on a bookshelf or coffeetable, instead of hiding them in the closet!
ReplyDeleteDon't have a good answer for letters just yet...
Thanks! Gotta do something with that big box of cards that keeps growing every year!
DeleteYay that book looks fabulous!! Love the cute image you put on the front... Except why does john look Asian? ;) yay dmo for the cute Casper glamor shot. <3
ReplyDeleteLove it! Did I tell you I used your wedding card book idea--I really like how it comes out!
ReplyDeleteYay I'm glad to hear that!! I'm hoping to spur a new worldwide movement to bind cards into book ;)
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