What to do with old Christmas cards.

Every year I rack my brain looking for projects my kids can do at Christmas time.  This year we used Christmas cards I just happened to save with the holiday decorations.  Together we made gifts for their grandparents, teacher, and friends.

Large bookmarks are the easiest.  Simply cut the card at the fold, punch a hole at the top and add a ribbon or yarn. 

Punch out shapes for confetti or shapes to use for other embellishments.

   

Parts of a card was used to make three different cards of different sizes.  Glue punched shapes back-to-back on the ends of the ribbons.

 Be sure to check out the inside of the cards for cute pictures,  lettering, or poems.

 Another idea is to make your own package tags.  If you have a die cutting machine cut out tags.  The two on the right were cut out by scissors. The white tag is embosses with a winter shapes.  The bird bookmark with the hearts is a gift for a friend with a January birthday.

 My husband likes to buy a super large roll of multipurpose wrapping paper.  Below is a sample of the gold stripe-Christmas, wedding, birthday paper we will be using for the next five years.  I use ribbons to make it look snazzy but at Christmas our cat will pull off and eat any bow he finds.  He also considers under the tree his personal space.  So we have been using used Christmas cards to personalize the gifts.  Cat proof.

 Of course any type of greeting card can be repurposed into fun gifts.