An Old Christmas Card

It's the same every year. Starting in early December my house is filled with Christmas cards from family and friends near and far. I love checking the mail, reading the greetings, seeing the family photos, and hearing about how everyone's year has been. It is awesome. That is until I have to decide what to do with them once the New Year has begun. Sure, some cards are special and will end up in my pretty tied-up pile that comes out with the decorations each year, but the bulk of them need to go somewhere else and I simply hate for that to be in the trash can.

If you're like me and wondering what to do to with all those cards, consider reusing and recycling. I've rounded up a few fun ideas that should work for almost every crafty skill level:

Take all those photo cards from friends and fam and create a photo collage to be enjoyed year-round. Try framing a collage like this one made by MotherHuddle.com or creating a scrapbook page like Ali Edwards often does. I'm planning on doing this for this year, as well as saving some of my favourites to add in as embellishments on other holiday scrapbook pages.

photo collage from MotherHuddle.com

collage scrapbook page from AliEdwards.com

If you have kiddies (big or small) in the house, try creating your own advent calendar that uses bits and pieces of old cards behind the doors, like this one on the ever-crafty MarthaStewart.com website:

Of course you can also use bits and pieces of those holiday cards to whip up gift tags to use next year, handmade ornaments such as this intricate 3D star, or this awesome little gift bag. I would love to get a little treat in one of these beauties, wouldn't you?

as seen on wikihow.com

The options for kid friendly crafts are endless too. You could sit them down with child-friendly scissors, glue or tape a guidelines for making coasters, bookmarks, tree ornaments, art pages, holiday magnets, puzzles, and more.

Or, if you consider yourself the non-crafty type, you can always donate those holiday cards to a program like the St. Jude's Ranch, which recycles old cards of all occasions into new cards through one of their programs. The old cards are made into new cards by removing the front and attaching a new back. The benefits are "two-fold in that customers can buy “green” holiday cards for use and the youth involved in the Ranch program receive payment for their work and learn the benefits and importance of “going green”. 

As you take down those card wreaths, garlands and mantle displays this year, take the time to give those old cards new life rather than just tossing them in the trash.

Do you have another fun way to use up old cards?

Gift Giving Guides (Borrowed Guest Posts)

Being only two weekends away from Christmas, I'm sure many of us are looking to wrap up our holiday gift shopping (or perhaps just begin!) this weekend. If you're in that group, let me introduce you to the lovely Katie Clark.

This past August Katie traded in her days navigating the world of intergovernmental affairs in four inch heels, for full-time motherhood to Thomas and Keds. Since 2009, Katie has penned the lifestyle and design blog, Horizontal Stripes, which began as a portal to document her life while living in the wild west (Edmonton, Alberta) with a man she moved in with after spending only 17 days together (her now husband, Greg). The blog has become an outlet for sharing design inspiration and life milestones. When Katie isn't singing made up songs to her three month old son, she can be found walking around her neighbourhood, Georgestown, eating empanadas and pecan tarts at The Rocket Bakery, and watching reality tv (Mob Wives and The Real Housewives of NYC are current favourites)... Oh and wearing horizontal stripes.

Katie and I met through a mutual contact by way of us all having babies around the same time and I immediately took up reading her blog. She recently ran an AWESOME post titled Toy Roadmap where she detailed an assortment of toys suited to babies from three months through to three years of age. If you are looking for unique and useful ideas for gifts for a baby or toddler in your life this Christmas, look no more. Follow her roadmap and you'll be sure to find something they'll love. As Katie, momma to Thomas, says:

...I do continually look forward to Thomas' increasing ability to interact with and experience his world. I'm a strong believer that before institutionalized learning begins in Kindergarten, children learn most effectively through play. For this reason, I'm very motivated to continually introduce age appropriate toys to our son to stimulate his play experiences. If curious, here's our family's road map for Thomas' play for his first three years.

Here are a few of my favourite highlights on the Toy Roadmap:

You can head on over to Horizontal Stripes for the full post and ideas a plenty. While there, you can also check out her many other holiday gift guides for all the people in your life including:

Your M-I-L Who Single-Handedly Keeps Canada Post in Business and Calls Your Baby Chicklet

Gifts For Your Friend Who Introduced You to the Delicious Rebar Cookbook and Whose Travels Give You Wanderlust

Gifts for Your Mother Who Cooks You Delicious Meals and Sweets Every Sunday and Emails Every Day to Check In

Gifts for Your Friend Who Is More Likable Than Mary Tyler Moore and Who is Expecting Her First Child in February

Gifts For Your Brother Who Makes the Most Delicious BBQ and Announced He Wanted to Teach His Nephew to Play Baseball Upon Learning You Were Expecting

Gifts for Your Friend Who Makes Hot Pink Lipstick Look Good and Who is Known to Leave Brownies on Your Stoop to Make You Smile

Gifts for Your Grandma Who Marks Her Cookies with a Cross Before Baking and Who Loved the Monarchy Even Before Kate Came Along

Gifts for Your Husband Who Loves Modern Design and Skips His Morning Coffee so He can Cuddle With Your Baby

Thanks Katie for letting me share this gift-giving goodness with my readers!