6 Ways You Can Recycle Your Christmas Cards This Year

When Christmas is over, you will find yourself with a pile of Christmas cards which you can no longer put on display. Many people, even savvy skippers such as yourself, throw these items out or stuff them in a draw and forget about them, but there are many ways of repurposing them for next year’s festivities. Here’s our top six ways you can recycle your Christmas cards this year.

Tree decorations
It is easy to convert Christmas cards into decorations for your tree. Cut out figures, backgrounds and objects from your cards, attach small strings, and hang them from your tree.

Gift tags
This is basically the same to the above project – but instead of hanging the cut-outs from the tree, you attach them to presents. Put the recipient’s name on the back for the final touch.

Collages
If you have kids, then making a Christmas collage out of old cards will be a hard project for them to resist. Get them to cut out bits and pieces from various cards and glue them together to create a new scene; the results can be very funny, particularly if traditional Victorian-style cards are combined with modern, cartoonish ones.

Place mats
Expecting a lot of visitors to your Christmas party? Then you will need plenty of place mats on the table, and Christmas cards are just perfect for the job. Cut out the front of the card and glue it to a piece of thicker cardboard, making space for the person’s name.

Jigsaw puzzles
Another craft which is just perfect for younger kids. Simply cut each card up into pieces, so your children can have fun trying to piece them together again.

Bunting
Finally, it is incredibly easy to make attractive bunting from old cards. Simply stretch a piece of string from one end of the room to the other and balance the cards on top – this works best with landscape-format cards that are designed to open at the top. If you are worried about them falling off, add a dab of glue to each one and this will not be a problem.