In December 2009 when it came time to take down the directions, I had 3 full shoeboxes of Christmas cards from present and past years including their envelope. 2009 was a really rainy winter here in So Cal; we had just had the station fire, & with fire comes rain and mudslides. I spent a lot of time in front of the computer and came across this post.
So every night for about a week, I punched, and cut up 3 boxes worth of cards. I punched anything that would fit in the 2” punch. Everything else I hand cut. I looked for things that symbolized, the person who gave me the card.
Here is what I kept in mind while cutting:
-If it was a picture card {the greatest and easiest Xmas card ever} I cut the picture as small as I could, some of these cars have multiple pictures, I cut them all/or punched what I could.
-I then labeled the back of the pictures so just in case I forgot I knew who it was.
-I liked to included the name off the card too, so that also got punched or cut
-For regular paper or “hallmark” cards I punched a piece of the card & punched the signature.
-The homemade cards I tried to use as much of them as I could, if they had a die cut on them I pulled it off carefully. These bits give your page depth.
-And for the envelopes, I cut the return address, or from a favorite aunt I cut a part with my address.
-If the envelope had a cute Christmas postage stamp I saved that, or anything special about the envelope was some how cut down to reuse.
2007 Left side Layout
2007 Right Side Layout
What it looks like in a 12x12 album
2007 center page
the back side of the 2 pages together
the center page backside
2008 Right Layout
2008 Left Layout
what it looks like in a 12x12 book
with the middle page
2008 the 2 back sides together
2009 Right Layout
2009 Left Layout
what it looks like in a 12x12 book
2009 the 2 back sides together
{this year did not have a middle page}
I then took my 2 12x12 pieces of card stock and started laying out all the little bits & pieces that I cut. {keep in mind when I did the cutting process I kept the years separate} Once everything fit I adhered it. I then flipped the page over and wrote the family name on each spot or used the cut up return address to mark each person or family.
Just this year when I pulled these pages out, I saw a picture and thought who is that, I flipped it over and the name was there!
What’s great about this process is you feel a lot of weight lift off your shoulders. You feel like you finally have done something with all these cards and did not throw away the time and money people spent to wish you a Merry Christmas.
It also serves as a make shift address book too.
{This was my first attempt at scanning 12x12 pages and stitcjing them together, the reason they arent super straight and good}
Do you do anything with your Christmas Cards?
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