3 ways to 'recycle' holiday photo cards

You are probably more organized… but this past Saturday I was trying to figure out what to do with the holiday photo cards hanging in our dining room.

I had a window while the girls napped.  Here’s what I did, for FREE!  I took the cards off the ribbons that I had thumb-tacked into the picture rail.  Then I made three piles.

• cards (no photos)
• photo cards printed on cardstock paper
• photo cards printed on photo paper

The cards with no photos were recycled.  Literally.

THE CARD LOOP

The cards with photos printed on cardstock were put into piles of approximately 10 cards.  I punched a hole in the top of the card and threaded grosgrain ribbon (that I had hung them up with) through the hole.  The cards were pushed next to each other on the ribbon then I pulled about 8” of ribbon in front of and behind the cards.  In a finale move, I tied a bow at the top.  It looked really cute!

I put one on the door knob of our guest bedroom (some of those featured in the cards will probably visit us and stay in that room this coming year).  I also put one in the car, between the two car seats.  It have to say it is a BRILLIANT distraction.  Cali, age 1, says “DD” and “baby.”  My older daughter Lilah, age 4, asked “Who is this?” and we get to talk about friends and cousins she has yet to meet or may not remember.

THE MULLET

inside a cabinet door (party time!)I’ve talked about this idea before in a blog.  I taped half of the photos that were printed on photo paper behind cabinet & closet doors.  I call this memory-jogging-maneuver ‘The Mullet’ because the cards don’t obscure or clutter the visual look in your room.  In fact, you never see them until you open the cupboard door.  It’s all “business in front / party in the back,” like a mullet. 

HIDE-AND-FIND

I was sitting right next to the book shelf so I took a pile of the kids’ board books and started taping the photo cards to the back of the books.  This part of the bookdoesn’t have any “story” anyway.  It’s usually just an ugly barcode and fine print.  I had to trim some of the cards down, but I was able to fit the important stuff.  See.

front of books…back of books.

I also grabbed a stack of cook books off the shelf and sprinkled the remaining photo cards randomly in the cook books.  This year as we’re poking around for dinner ideas, we’ll be surprised by by friendly faces from the past (literally).  I especially liked when I dropped a card inside one of our Middle Eastern cook books and it looked like our friends were standing in the desert.

 

I’ll be honest, I will eventually recycle (as in put in the recycling bin) these cards.  Maybe when a card falls out of a cook book and it’s closer to the trash can.  Maybe when the kids get goo all over the ‘card loop.’  I’m totally fine with pitching them after I get a few more months of smile-mileage out of them…

What did you do with your cards this year?  Any other bright ideas?