Holiday Cards Become Next Year’s Gift Tags

I recently came across the idea of recycling Christmas cards into gift tags in Martha Stewart Living and decided to try it out. I love receiving holiday cards – it’s truly one of those joys of Christmas that I most look forward to. It’s like old school, once-a-year Facebook. You get to check in with friends and family via smiling faces and a few kind words – it’s a little peek into what’s going on in their lives. Families that you haven’t seen in years still feel part of your world because of that little card. I also love that I feel like I’m reconnecting all season long by displaying their Christmas card in full view somewhere in the house.

It seems silly to waste so many beautiful, well-designed cards at the close of the holidays…

So I pulled all of my craft punches, bakers twine and ribbon bits from my craft drawers to create holiday tags for next year. I already feel ahead of the game (I’m on a roll this year).

After cutting out favorite words or patterns, I used a simple slip knot on most so that I could either tie or tape the tag onto a future present:

Now I’ll put them all into a little ziplock baggie and throw them into my Christmas box out in the garage to be discovered in 11 months!

Whoever thought up the idea of Christmas cards was really on to something… some of the relationships I have with friends from back in college, high school or even grade school exist because we swap cards of our families. I dig that we still get to stay connected and I LOVE the excuse for our family to take a family photo once a year (even if labeling, hunting down new addresses, mailing and all of that is such a pain). Can’t wait to find these sure-to-be-forgotten-about tags next year, we’ll see if reusing these cards as gift tags was worth the effort.

Do you display your holiday cards for a while or pull them down right after Christmas? I’m feeling like I took mine down a little earlier this year…