One More Seasonal Tradition: Scrapbooking Holiday Cards

FANtabulous idea!

The photo cards get trimmed and put together in a simple layout that says the year and then all the photos in some sort of collage.. the non photo cards usually i cut out any interesting images too use in christmas layouts.. love your idea too!

What a fabulous idea! I always save my cards in a box. They are not doing me much good there though. We do like to re-use the nice artwork as gift tags and scraps to collage with (ATC's and other things). I'd love to organize the photos in some way and this is perfect.

As an employee of a well know very large hospital here in Baltimore, we collect cards and recycle them to senior centers in the area. They make gift tags out of them and give the tags as gifts to family members or sell them in local church bazaars in the fall.

I've been wondering what to do with our holidays cards - thank you so much for this idea! I LOVE IT!!!

One more question- I've always wondered about using items that are not acid free/lignin free in my albums. Do you do anything to the backs of the greeting cards to protect the album, or do you not worry about it?

This year I made a mini album where I stored the cards we received from our kids, photo cards, newsletters, handmade cards and other cards http://rosdavidson.typepad.com/ros_davidson_live_life_an/2010/01/christmas-card-album-tutorial.html

Ali, my photo cards are so big that they don't fit on a page like this. Do you scan and reduce them? I also like to cut off the return addresses and a few of the cancelled stamps to put on the back of the page. I also get the Christmas album with my pages like this in it first thing every year. These pages are in the back of my Journal Your Christmas binder.
Nancy

I do the same thing as you (and here I thought I was being creative HA :P )! Except I use my 2 inch square punch and put them as the last page in my December Daily.

I keep them in a tin, one of our aunts sends us sweets each year and so I then use the tin to hold that years cards. But, I love your idea and Susan's so might have to rethink this! hugs from Conroe, TX!

I created a mini book using the Maya Road - 3 Ring Tab Swatch Chipboard Book. I embellished a tab for each year, and just hole punched our cards to fit on the rings. I love how it turned out, and it is fun to look through during the holidays each year! This year I just have to pick out the cards I want to save and hole punch them to place in the album!

Some really great ides. My cards are currently in my December Daily box as I am still trying to finish it up. I now have some ideas what to do with them once my DD is finished! Thanks

My great aunt taught me a really cool craft that lets you hold on to cards, but make them useful. You cut out circles from the cards (like of the main design or whatever you like best about it). Then you take contact paper and overlap the circles into a oval-ish shape on the sticky side- then put the clear sheet over it, trim around the outside shape and voila! Holiday, kid proof, memory filled table decor!

I remake the cards into gift tags. I trim the artwork from the front of the card (or the sentiment that is preprinted on many photo cards) into a smaller shape, then use my paper scraps to mount them. (I do keep family photos in a shoebox) I add punched stars/snowflakes, stickles, ribbon, etc., all from my stash--I don't spend a dime. Add an eyelet and a bit of string, stamp to/from on the back and voila! My family members have taken to sending me their cards to use--they get a nice little package of tags in return (just sent my Mom more than 6 dozen tags made from her cards). I haven't purchased gift tags in years.

One year I took the box of traditional cards I had saved. Gathered 10 shoe boxes - one for each niece and nephew. I cut off the front images and decoupaged them all over the boxes. I made a bunch of different ornaments to put in the boxes and gave them to each child as a gift...their own special box of ornaments to take with them when they grow up. The mothers loved how they could pick out some of their own cards on the boxes.
Ali ~ I love this idea of yours for the picture cards. I've struggled to come up with something. I have gotten cards from the same families for years and would love to be able to show who everyone changes and grow. Do you ever feel the need to discretely label them with the names and for kids, the ages?

One year I took the box of traditional cards I had saved. Gathered 10 shoe boxes - one for each niece and nephew. I cut off the front images and decoupaged them all over the boxes. I made a bunch of different ornaments to put in the boxes and gave them to each child as a gift...their own special box of ornaments to take with them when they grow up. The mothers loved how they could pick out some of their own cards on the boxes.
Ali ~ I love this idea of yours for the picture cards. I've struggled to come up with something. I have gotten cards from the same families for years and would love to be able to show who everyone changes and grow. Do you ever feel the need to discretely label them with the names and for kids, the ages?

I always have kept the picture cards, but donated the rest. I use to be an ed. tech so then I donated them to teachers of the younger classes and the art teacher always had ideas for them. Now my youngest is at a preschool for the deaf and hard of hearing, so I just took all our cards and donated them there. The teacher will use them for collages and projects for the holidays next year including bookmarks!!!

I love this idea and I adopted when I saw this last year (I think...)
I don't keep cards at all, but I like this, just to have the memories of the Christmas Cards :o)

Simply brilliant.

We save our Christmas cards and set them at the dinner table with us. Each night as part of our dinner time prayer, we pick the top card and pray for that person or family. I then, toss the card, but after seeing your great layouts using your Christmas cards, I think I wil make another stack and start punching them up!!!

I'm a keeper... I actually have kept all of the cards I've received since graduating from college (about 10 years). For the holiday cards.... I write the year on the back. I also clip the address off the envelope and tape it to the back, too. For now, I keep all the cards in a basket in my study... maybe I'll have to change in the future, but I'm happy with it now. Since I started making my own holiday cards, I try to keep one of those too, so I know what I did from year to year.

when my best friend was shocked to find out that i did not keep her christmas card from year to year, i was shamed into following her lead by making this
(scroll through post to see photo) http://heatheremans.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/01/so-far-it-feels-like-january.html i plan on making one every year and putting them in a basket during the holidays for people to flip through.

I do what you do! Ever since I saw your solution I have copied it...just finished mine for 2009 last night and I love it. I really love looking thru the old ones to see how everyone has changed. I am now thinking of keeping them in it a separate album!
tammy t

I really love the gift tags idea :)
I used to cut the non-photo cards that were blank on the back and use them for my grocery list.... but I think from now on I'll save them for gift tags :)

Hi Ali,
I'm fairly new to scrapping and am really enjoying it. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to organize all my layouts and what I am going to scrap. I'm curious to read about how other people do this and what type of albums they are working on. For example one a year, one album a child, all christmas in just one album, etc. I know there are many ways to approach this, but was looking for people's thoughts...is there a discussion thread somewhere on your site? Thanks so much for all your wonderful ideas!