How to Recycle Old Christmas Cards

Are you an avid recycler? If you would like a few ways to recycle your old used holiday cards, check out some of these ideas.

Simply cut the front off of your card. You can use this as a postcard to send again next year.

Save up your old Christmas cards and make them into a gorgeous holiday advent calendar. Cut parts of pictures from each card and use them to create the little doors on your calendar. When you open them, there can be neat little images inside that have been cut from other cards.

You can make your Christmas cards brand new again for almost nothing at all. Cut a heavy sheet of paper to fit inside the card. Use glue to secure it over the inside and fold it closed. It will look best if the inside paper is slightly smaller than the card. Scalloped scissors make a lovely border for the inside paper. Now the card is brand new again and no one need know that it was originally written on. To make an envelope, simply fold a sheet of paper around your card and secure it with glue, string, or a sticker seal. Just make sure that you do not send it back to the person who sent it to you the previous year.

Are your cards too pretty to throw away or cut to pieces? Frame them or glue them to the back of a frame matting and hang them up around your home for the holidays.

You can make particularly pretty cards into door greetings that can be used again year after year. Glue a long strand of tinsel garland or silk evergreen boughs around the border of the card and tie a silk ribbon at the top. You can hang these around your home, set them on the mantel above the fireplace, or hang them on your front door in place of a wreath.

Beautiful cards can become tree ornaments. Cut two circular images from two different cards in the exact same size. On the back of one, glue lace around the edge with hot glue. Lay this one face-down with the back and lace up and glue the other image to the other side so that the backs of both card pieces are together with the lace glued between. The lace should make a pretty ruffle around the edge of the two-sided ornament. Don't forget to make a loop at the top for hanging on your tree.