Waste Not, Want Not, and All Those Cards

I love getting Christmas cards. It’s the time of year when we hear from family and friends, distant and near. We catch up on all of the family goss with the Christmas letters. We line the mantel with cards in a colourful row of good cheer.

And then, the inevitable happens. Christmas is over, the tree is taken down, the stockings are stowed, and there are all of those beautiful cards. What to do? I am basically a pack rat but there is probably a limit to how much can be stored away. In fact, I don’t think I need to save the card from the insurance agent, beautiful though the card is. But I really do hate to throw them away.

So I took the front of some of my favourite cards and made them into little pillow boxes. They turned out a perfect size for earrings, pendants, and small stocking stuffers. Yes, there is one in every crowd who starts prep for Christmas in January. Usually, that is not me. So I’m feeling quite virtuous now with my creative re-use & advance Christmas prep. These little boxes are folded flat and put away where I can find them next year. In the closet with all of those Christmas bags that I saved and the little bits of wrapping paper that were still good. Once a string saver, always a string saver. And if you’d like to feel virtuous too, you can find instructions and a handy template here.