Turn Your Christmas Cards into Holiday Keepsakes

Christmas ornaments, Gift Boxes and Christmas Letters: Crafty things to do with your holiday cards so they won't become trash.

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CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT GLOBES

Items Needed: Cards, hole punch, scissors, paper fasteners

Step One: Cut the card in half so you're left with the pretty top portion of the card.

Step Two: Cut the card into equal sized strips (my strips were 1.5 cm)

Step Three: Hole punch the tops and bottoms of all the strips (do three at a time)

Step Four: Stack all the strips together and insert one paper fastener through top set of holes and one paper fastener through bottom set of holes

Step Five: Bend the stack into a "C" shape and slowly fan out the strips until the form a globe.

Step Six: Tie a pretty ribbon or string around the top of the paper fastener and hang from a tree or leave as is and create a display in a bowl or vase

Helpful Hint: I used 8 strips for the larger globe and 20 for the smaller. The less strips used, the easier it is for little hands.

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CARD BOXES

I learned how to do this craft when I volunteered in Son No. 1's grade 2 class and had to make 20 of them WITH MY ASS CRAMMED INTO A CHAIR MADE FOR CHILDREN. It seems like a lot of instructions but once you do one, you'll see how simple it is. Also? It's much better when you're making them in a regular sized chair.

Items Needed: Cards, ruler, pencil, scissors, glue stick (I used glue dots because I'm awesomely lazy)

Step One: Cut card in half.

Step Two: Draw an X on the back side of the decorated piece of card to mark the middle.

Step Three: Fold top and bottom so the edges meet in the middle.

Step Four: Repeat with the side edges.

Step Five: Make four small cuts on the folds you created, not going past where the folds meet the "X" (see picture below)

Step Six: Fold in the tabs and glue. If using a glue stick you may have to hold in place for a few minutes. Repeat on other side.

Step Seven: Repeat on other side

Step Eight: Fold over edges of the box and glue

Step Nine: Repeat all of the above steps with the message portion of the card to create the bottom half of the box ONLY instead of meeting the edges in the middle when you make the folds, go over the centre by 1 mm to make the bottom half of the box smaller (so the top half can fit over top)

TA DA!!! A cute, decorative box is all yours.

LETTERS

I was looking at the pile of cards left and decided to cut out a letter A just to see what it would look like and voila! How cute would it be to cut out your kids names, string them together and hang on their doors. Or you could make phrases like Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or I Love Christmas Because It's Acceptable To Drink Baileys At 9:00 a.m.!