Repurposing Christmas cards by making them into new cards is one of the most popular ways to keep them from cluttering your home. While you could just recycle them, why not give card-making a try? You’ll create a fresh original Christmas card with your own special touches!
For this craft, start by simply cutting your favorite elements from the old cards. For example, cut a scene, a greeting, or a cute picture. Perhaps there is a sentiment set you haven’ t used much (or at all!) yet. Look through your old cards to see if you have images that would coordinate perfectly with the greetings.
In order to transform your card, choose cardstock for your new creation in a coordinating color. In addition, find a sentiment, background, and embellishments. Two examples are shown below to get you started.
Religious Themed Card Scene
Firstly cut a larger image down to fit a standard card front, which is 4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″. Use a paper trimmer, or alternatively a die cutting machine with dies, such as these Stitched Rectangles Dies. Then mount your image on the card front with multipurpose glue, or other adhesive.
Finally add a sentiment, like this one from For Unto Us. For an ornate image, such as the red and gold one below, heat-emboss the greeting with Gold embossing powder to match the background. If you haven’t tried heat embossing yet, get more details in this post. Of course stamping the sentiment in a coordinating color works too, but the embossing is so elegant!
Repurposing Christmas Cards by Cutting Out Elements
Sometimes there are just a couple elements that you want to save from an old greeting card. For this card, it is these smiling gingerbread people. To create a new card with them, cut a piece of silver foil for the background. Then score it 1/4″ from the edge all the way around to resemble a baking sheet. Add the cutouts, then stamp and die cut a spatula and rolling pin. Lastly add the die cuts and a greeting with the What’s Cookin’ Bundle from the Stampin’ Up! 2021-2022 Annual Catalog. As a result, the cute gingerbread people have a new life and you have a cute card to send!
Featured Stamp Sets: For Unto Us, What’s Cookin’
The sentiments in the For Unto Us stamp set have beautiful fonts as shown below. Use them for both the outside and inside of your repurposed cards. For example, the first card above has “oh, come let us adore him” heat embossed in gold on the inside.
Alternatively, build creative kitchen cooking and baking scenes with the What’s Cookin’ bundle of stamps and dies. While the dies cut out some stamped images from the coordinating set, there are several additional elements included, such as the cutting board and whisk. The bundle includes 10% savings over buying the two products separately.
In conclusion, repurposing Christmas cards can be as simple as adding a greeting. Or it can mean embellishing with as many additional elements as you like! Are you ready to try it today? Leave a comment below and let us know what you are creating!