Great Ideas to Upcycle Christmas Cards 5 January 2015  |  Nicola

If you’re the sentimental type, you might have found yourself with a box full of old Christmas cards that you can’t quite bare to throw away, but don’t really have space to keep either. The good thing is, old cards are perfect for upcycling and turning into other fab festive projects – we’ve found a few of our favourite ideas around the internet and have created an inspirational roundup to help you use up your stash.

The most obvious thing to do with old Christmas cards is to turn them into gift tags; either by using a shaped hole-punch or scalloped scissors, you can use the very best parts of the image to make pretty tags to decorate your gifts with this season. The ones at No Biggie are a great example of how to make the best of those unwanted cards.

Decoration wise, we really liked the novel winter-scene idea over at My So Called Crafty Life; using old Christmas cards, wooden boxes and miniature decorations, you can create something wonderfully kitsch for the mantel piece.

The possibilities for smaller decorations are almost endless; our favourites were the miniature houses from Better Homes and Gardens, and the 3D heart house tree ornament from Michelle Made Me. We thought the little houses would be great with some LED lights stood inside – teamed with some other ornaments, you could create a lovely, festive winter scene. We also liked the 3D ornaments from Martha Stewart, and were really inspired by a similar design being made into a garland over at Bobbi Lewin.

The awards for most-intricate craft were handed out to Crafty Sy and Thinly Spread; the card wreath at Crafty Sy was impressively colourful and detailed, and the trees we saw over on the Thinly Spread blog were beautifully kitsch and just perfect for hanging from the Christmas tree.