Recycle old greeting cards into brand new cards

I originally published this in November 2011, but wanted to share it again!

A greeting card at the grocery store can cost you anywhere from $0.99 to $6.99 for those fancy ones that sing (and for that price I think they should do the dishes, too). If you love the idea of giving cards, but have a hard time with the cost – here’s a great way to get creative, save some money and give a heart-felt note without breaking the bank.

I save old cards in a storage bin.

I have saved every card someone has given me. I save them for two reasons – some for sentimental reasons, others for “I can reuse this again” reasons! Set your sentimental cards aside, I’m not suggesting you do anything but treasure those. But for the cards you get that are nice but not necessarily keepsake worthy – let’s remake them into another card!

What you’ll need:

• Old thank you cards (or any cards – thinking of you, happy birthday, etc.)
• Blank cards/envelopes or white cardstock to make your cards
• Glue, scissors and any other crafty stuff that you like to use
• Creativity

I like to buy the big boxes of colored blank cards from JoAnns or Michaels when I have a 40-50% off coupon – you can get them from $5-$10. You can also find cards at thrift stores and garage sales.

Take the components you like from your original thank you cards and figure out a way to combine them to make new cards! You can make thank you cards, birthday cards, thinking of you cards – or even Christmas cards with previous year’s cards!

I like this idea because it gives the allure of a fancy, homemade card – but you don’t need to spend all the money on the expensive embellishments, papers or scrapbooking supplies.

Here are some examples of ones I made:

This card has really pretty textured paper on it – so I just cut out a piece of the front card, some linen card stock from my wedding invitations (eight years old) and glued it on a colored card.

For this one I took two different thank you cards and cut out the “Many Thanks” from the front cover of the bird-themed card. I then used the polka dot cover from the other card as a background color and added the thank you piece to the inside of the card. You can also put little decorations on the envelopes!

This one had great raised, textured flower pieces that I cut out and glued to the front of the new brown card. I used a “thank you” stamp on a piece of scrap paper and added that to the front. Super easy and I probably would have paid $4 or $6 for a store-bought card with the raised, textured flowers.

I encourage you to be creative with wrapping papers, magazines, mailers and cards to find creative elements that can be part of your semi-homemade gift card.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

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• Organize your bills and household paperwork
• I tackle the spice cabinet and survive
• How to organize your coupons in a box
• How to make a coupon binder