How-to Recyle Old Greeting Cards

If you are anything like me, you save stacks and stacks of greetings cards that you received for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, and other holidays. But after years of collecting them, you do not know what to do with them. Some have sentimental value that you'll always want to keep, but others from your great Aunt Tillie have less meaning, but are beautiful so you hesitate to throw them away. The result: a drawer or some other organizational apparatus that is overflowing with expensive little Hallmark sentiments.

Put your miniature pieces of "art work" to good use, long after the occasion is over, one of five ways:

Make decorative bags
Cut out your favorite design on the greeting card, or if you like the entire thing, cut off the entire cover and adhere it to a plain gift bag using two-sided tape or adhesive found in craft stores.Outline the design with glitter glue or markers and consider enhancing the design.

If it has snowflakes on it, add glue and glitter and make them shimmer. If you have nice hand writing, are well-versed in calligraphy, or know how to use a computer, you can add a sentiment related to the occasion. Use a brown or colored bag to match the artwork in the card. Complete it by adding matching curly ribbon around the handles and you have a nice way to present a gift without spending much money.

Create gift tags
Instead of buying gift tags during the holidays, consider cutting out the artwork from old greeting cards just as you did for the decorative bags. Only this time, punch a hole in the top, thread matching curly ribbon through it and attached it to a holiday present. Each tag will be unique and those receiving the gift will notice the extra attention to detail to their package.

Use as a luggage tag
This idea follows the same thought as the gift tags, but rather than adhering the used card to gifts, you adhere it to your luggage. There's one extra step though: you may want to consider laminating the cards first since baggage handlers aren't exactly gentle with luggage. The benefit: you'll have pretty artwork on your luggage for all to see and when it comes up on the conveyor belt, it will be easy to spot particularly if you use a greeting card with bright colors and designs.

Replace pads of paper with old greeting cards
Instead of buying notepads to write down endless to-do lists, use an old greeting card. It'll save you money on paper which can get costly if you need to write everything down the way I do, plus you'll help the environment by saving trees.

Scrap your own greeting cards or scrapbook album pages
Stickers and other graphics for your scrapbook can be expensive. Why not use the artwork already designed on your greeting cards to make your own greeting cards or incorporate them into your scrapbook layouts? You can adhere them flat to paper using two-side tape or adhesive, or add pop-dots to make them jump of the page. Leave the design as is or use your scrapbook supplies to enhance it.