Thursday, February 02, 2017

A little bit of crafting


Tags from 2010
I've shared before how I enjoy making gift tags from our old Christmas cards.  That little project is just completed for this year, and I had so much fun doing it.  The ones I just finished would be from the cards we received in December 2015.  I like to keep the cards in a wooden holder for a year, so I can reread messages, pray for those who sent the cards, and so on. After a year,  I take them out, make tags from most of them, and place the current year's cards in the wooden pine cone holder.

As I'm sure I've said too many times to count, one of the times that I am happiest and feel most peaceful and content is when I can take time to work at my little glass-topped crafting desk.
An older picture.  It has been a long, long time since my crafting desk had this much clear space on it.
If I can have a mug of tea at hand, and if it happens to be snowing out, my contentment level is through the roof.  This almost never happens, but today it did.

On Tuesday evening,  I was able to attend our local Christmas Club at a friend's home.  One of the things we did at the meeting was to make tags out of our Christmas cards.  I brought along my templates and a couple of paper punches,  plus some silver cord and bakers twine.  Crochet cotton in red or green works well too.  I was able to make tags from about 2/3 of the cards I'd brought, at the meeting.
Also from 2010.  Many of these have been used by now.
I ran out of time so planned on finishing the rest of the tags at home.  Yesterday I was able to carve out a little space of time to do that.  My desk -- I mentioned in the caption above that it has little clear space.  The sad fact of the matter is, it has none.  Stacked high with file folders (most having to do with my dad's concerns and care) that I have no other place to put, it depresses me every time I look at it.  In order to craft, I can remove a stack of folders to give myself some space.

What I really need to do, of course, is clear out space in our own filing cabinet to make those folders fit in there.  And I should begin the project this very day!  We will see.

But back to yesterday.  I removed some folders and found space to measure and cut the tags, then punch holes at the top and string through a length of cord.  There was even room on the desk for a mug of tea, and as I worked, big snowflakes were drifting lazily down.  Ah!  Thirty minutes or so of wonderful mental health therapy.  I need to make time to do something like this more often!  Here is some of the result:

Do you make tags from your used Christmas cards, or utilize them in crafting some other way?

8 comments:

  1. Your tags are lovely! I used to send my cards to a charity that collected them to be re-purposed and sold. The past few years I've torn the fronts off of the cards and put them away with the intention of doing something with them someday. Your post has given me the inspiration to make gift tags of them!

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  2. Thanks, Vicki! Have fun with this simple idea! You might also like to check out the featured post in the sidebar at right for another project using Christmas cards.

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  3. I save all of our cards and put them in an album along with the newsletters and photos that come with them. I take one night usually at the start of the current holiday season to take out last year's album and read through them all again. That way, when the new cards come in, I can see how the children have grown or what has changed from year to year. I have every card from as far back as 1994! Sadly, the albums are getting thinner and thinner as less and less people send cards.

    Your local Christmas Club sounds wonderful. Is it sort of a Rudolph Day-type gathering, one day a month to work on something Christmasy? I would love to have something like that to look forward to each month. Great post, lovely tags.

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    1. That is a great idea about the albums, Pamela! What a nice thing to look through the previous year's album just before the holidays.

      Yes, our Christmas Club is just as you described. We work on Christmasy projects, encourage one another with our notebooks, plans, and preparations. A librarian friend of mine started the club last January at the library. We have sometimes met there and sometimes at her home. It's a pretty small group -- under 10 people, but it varies with what's going on in people's lives. It is a lot of fun and very encouraging.

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  4. Very cute and such a good recycling ideal.

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  5. Thanks, Lana! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. See the featured post in the sidebar for another recycling idea!

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  6. I am sooo glad you mentioned this blog on your other blog as I LOVE it! Honestly I thought I was alone in my love of working Christmas projects. I don't usually start until July, but I could seriously work it year round. The gift tags is a wonderful idea and yours are sooo pretty! I don't keep the cards around much past January, except for the ones with family pictures on them of course. But what a good recycling idea this is! I am anxious now to read through a few more posts here... big smile!

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  7. Welcome, Debbie!!! I am so glad I mentioned it, too. No, you are far from being alone in your love of working on Christmas projects. There are a number of other ladies with Christmas blogs. I try to post in mine year round and I always post every day in July and December, so you should find plenty of fun things in the archives to keep you inspired!

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