Christmas Card Keepsake Books

As I was putting away our Christmas decor last week I went through the every year struggle of what to do with the Christmas Cards we got this year. I love them and appreciate that friends and family took the time to send us a card. These sweet cards matter to us, but I’m an anti-clutter type of girl and didn’t have a good way to organize them (quickly) so I could keep them nicely. So usually I keep this years cards in the Christmas decorations box and then the next year I get out the decorations and we reminisce over last years cards getting excited over the upcoming season. Well here it is time to put away our 2011 Christmas stuff, and I see 2010’s cards in the box and can’t bring myself to do the normal, “ok I’ve kept these over a year and I’m not a pack rat” reasoning with myself. 

So my solution was to get online and research ideas to reuse or save old Christmas cards. I found lots of great ideas like using the front cover to cut out Christmas tags for next year or making ornaments from the front covers with the kids. Then I came across my favorite one which was to use index card rings to make card books. This made it an organized storage idea plus I could still keep the heartfelt messages from family and friends, I loved it. So, I recently went to Walmart (not my idea of fun) to go through a recent huge clearance section they are having in their garden center. One of the things I found was index card rings!  They were on clearance for 75 cents for a package, and I was so excited to find not only what I needed but for half off. 

Next I gathered the last two years of cards and stacked them separately and used my 3 hole punch to punch 2 holes in each card that would be equal length apart. Then I used the rings to bind them together. These were easy and quick, probably only took me 15 min start to finish. A great naptime project, and now they are packed away neatly with the Christmas decor.

I plan on putting them out on the coffee table next Christmas season for us to look through and reminisce. I only wish I’d found this idea sooner so I could have kept all the past Christmas cards also…. oh well 2010’s cards are a good year to start with I guess.  Thanks for stopping by 🙂  Johanna