Repurposing Christmas Cards

I hope you all had a very blessed Christmas! It's always a little sad when it's over but now that it has come and gone, what do you do with those Christmas cards that you have received? I don't save all of them but there are certain ones, depending on the designs, that I save to repurpose. I actually started doing this years ago...long before blogging existed and before the word repurpose was in our vocabulary. 

If you notice, many of them are designed with a border of some sort, printed or embossed around the edge...sometimes in different shapes...rectangles, ovals, circles, etc. I cut these out to make pretty mattings for Christmas photos and most of them can fit into standard size frames. The one above was a card I received last year and found it in my wrapping supplies a few weeks ago. I love the embossing on this one and it could actually cut twice and make two since there is a border within a border. This one only needed a slight trim to fit the frame.

I have done this through the years. Below, is the first one I remember making. I actually didn't have to do any cutting on this one because the card was already made for a picture to place in the oval. Remember the Hallmark photo cards that they used to have every year? Of course, that was back in the day before the digital cards we can make ourselves. These are my two boys...just a few years ago. Notice the acid washed jeans? Gotta love those 80's! :)

I will say that I have learned a few things over the years. This frame is actually too small to show this one off like it should. That sweet little cardinal should not have had his head nor his tail feathers cropped! I got a little carried away and cut too much off so it would fit in this frame I guess...oopsies :( You get the idea though, right? Here are a few other examples.

Son, Adam and his wife Carrie with our Hunter, sporting the lovely Santa hat.

Younger version of Adam and his cousin, Stephanie sitting on Santa's lap.

Son, Aaron and his two boys, Dacey and Dylan when they were just little guys.

This one and the one below were trimmed, miter cut in the corners and taped together.

Here is a closer look at the mitered corners...the frames were square and the cards were rectangular. 

I really liked the borders so I needed to improvise a bit.

And of course, I have to include this sweet photo of Dad kissing Mom's cheek...
under the mistletoe. They are kissing in heaven now :)

Now, back to the beginning of this post.

I had found this frame at Goodwill a few months ago and it was nearly a perfect fit...

...only a little trim was all it took. 

Now it's ready for the perfect Christmas photo from this year.  

Then, as I was looking through some of this year's cards, I found this one that simply say JESUS.

.

Hmm...I see possibilities here...

...not only will this gold embossed green border make a lovely matting...if I decide to cut it...

...look how beautiful the whole card is and it fits perfectly inside the frame!
I think I'll add this one to my collection for next year!


What do you do with your old Christmas cards? 

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