Hey, what do you do with holiday cards when you receive them? I put them up with poster putty around the wide doorway leading from our living room into our kitchen, so that I’ll see them a million times a day and can admire them from my favorite recliner. I look forward to the mail every day in December.
This year I’m making decorative clothespins and using them to hang cards on either a garland or a long ribbon. (Haven’t decided which, yet, as no holiday cards have arrived and we haven’t started decorating either.)
Clothespins being made with this tutorial, except I am using ribbon, not paper:
http://www.marthastewart.com/goodthings/card-garland?autonomy_kw=clothespins&rsc=header_10
oh my goodness, i do the same thing with mine!!
i get so disappointed when the mailbox contains no cards….
I actually just stick them in a little basket, but per Harper’s request, we often take them down and look at the pictures!
At first I thought you’d talk about what to do with them once the holiday is over. I just found a bag full of cards for each of the last several years with our holiday decorations. Perhaps I hang on too much?
We just moved so I was wondering what to do in the new house with them. I love getting Christmas cards!
I have one wall in my living room that has a ledge that runs along it. I have the couch sitting along that wall, and I put holiday cards up there. The couch has the added plus of keeping the dog away from the holiday cards (he is not allowed on the furniture unless he is invited up, and fortunately for me he has never decided to disregard that rule. Although I probably just tempted fate by putting that in writing!).
Also, thank you for using the phrase “poster putty” I call it sticky tack, and was wondering just today what other people call it. These are the big important questions one ponders at work while ordering office supplies…
Oh, I love that idea! I usually put them on the table in the foyer and forget about them. Now ummm where do you find this magical poster putty of which you speak?
fairydogmother, I call it ticky tacky. I have no idea why and I think I’m probably the only person on the planet who does. :)
I have always had some sort of ledge to sit my cards on and then I spend the entire month of December picking up fallen cards knocked over by some animal/baby combination, so thank you for your idea because it is MUCH BETTER than mine.
I put them around the check yourself mirror by the front door so I can see them when I’m coming and going
We have blinds on our windows so I just tetris them in the slats and it makes it purdy without any real work at all.
I have some card hangers from pier one that suction cup to the GIANT 70’s mirror that covers an entire wall in my family room (the part that isn’t wood paneling painted baby blue).
Kirida, I am trying your blinds idea because I am too darn lazy to go out and get putty (another good idea, though)!
I have a metal wreath thing that I keep up all year for whatever cards come our way. Some b-day cards are up for a loooong time and the Christmas cards overfill it but it works. It has wire spirals that you tuck the cards into.
Do you mean the Christmas Cards I don’t get because I move so much that no one has my current address?
Oops, sorry. Tangent there.
If there are more than three or four, I tape them to the back of my front door. If there are just a few (as is common these days *sniff*), I put them on the bar ledge that is common in apartment dweller homes.
I do the same thing too. Christmas card mail is one of my favorite things about the holidays — both sending and receiving…although the receiving part is a whole lot less work!
Blueberry: ME TOO! No new Christmas card in the mailbox = SAD SWISTLE.
Michelle: Let’s see, it’s been awhile since I bought any. Oh! It’s with pens and pencils at places like Target and Walmart. It’s often available in a yellow kind by one brand and a white kind by Elmer, and I get the white kind. Oh, Fairydogmother! I see Elmer’s calls it “Tac ‘N Stik.”
I display them on top of my bookshelves or something. But I always save the cards. This year’s cards are cut up next year for gift tags for Christmas presents. Many card covers can be cut up into a number of pretty tags. My mom always did this and it’s a habit I’ve acquired.
I actually do the same thing with the doorway. I like how that looks – like its not cluttered.
Here’s a question: What do you do when the holidays are over with people’s cards? Especially the photo ones? I always feel so guilty throwing them away, but then I think “what the hell else am I going to do with years and years of people’s holiday photo cards?”
I hang mine (with tape, but should maybe try putty!) on my pantry door. I love the idea of “tetrising” them in the window blinds! Also love tetris as a verb!
You people are great.
I have a long fabric strip with pockets in it that I shove the cards into. It has a big snowman head on the top and is all festive colors. It’s also where I keep my Christmas card address book so I always know where it is!
I usually just put them in a very boring, not-even-decorated-for-Christmas basket. But, I do pull out the “special” ones (like from my parents, my sister, and my best friends) and put them up on the fireplace mantle. Hopefully those who remain in the basket won’t figure out my system!
I actually need a good place for mine. For my baby shower, people had this bow with long ribbons and they close-pinned all my cards to it. Maybe I can do something similar with Christmas cards.
I do something similar to you. I hang them all on the wall in my hallway. It’s decorative and festive. I get to see them and be happy yet they are not cluttering the tops of my furniture.
After Christmas I keep the handmade ones and hang them on my sample line in my craft room for future ideas.
Please Mr. Postman, look and see. Is there a letter in your bag for me?
I was so excited to finally have a mantle from which to hang stockings and cards for the first time last year – that is until we built a fire in the fireplace that night and became very alarmed by the proximity of the flames to all those flammable things.
I’m stealing Emily’s clothespin idea – pure genius! And not a fire hazard!
We hang them on a card tree. Also, after the season is over with, we cut the fronts off the pretty cards and use them for gift tags for the following year.
I stick mine on the door between my laundry room and kitchen. And I leave them up until March. No seriously two years ago my hubby made me take them down for my daughter’s birthday party March 24th. Whatever, I like to look at them, they make me happy.
I like that clothesline idea! Maybe I’ll do that across our mantle, now that we actually have one!
Tape them to the wall.
Pick them up from the floor after they fall off the wall.
Stick more tape on them and replace on the wall.
Repeat until December 26.
I do the same thing. I put them on the doorway from the dining room into the living room. My gram did this and I still do it.
I’ve yet to get my cards. UGH.
Pitch the lame ones. Funny ones go up on the mantle.
Depends on the year, and how motivated I am. Often, they are just in a pile inside a decorative wicker basket or bowl (the nice thing about that is if your guests want to take a look at your cards, they can sit down to do it). I’ve done the string-them-together thing, having them hang around a door frame. One year, I put up a 4 ft artificial tree, and used it to display the cards. I think I just wedged the cards onto the branches, skipping the hole-punch and string. That was actually my favorite way to display them. We’ve since gotten rid of the 4 ft. tree though, after our basement flooded (and the cardboard box got wet/gross). This year? Who knows!
I precariously balance them on the end of the dining table. I haven’t found the “perfect space” for them in our new house.
The old house had a lovely decorative “beam” separating the kitchen from the living room which was PERFECT for the cards. Sigh…
picture cards are hung on fridge and replace last year’s, which I move into an album (or will one day; right now they are sitting in a pile on my desk). The rest (ie non-pics) get read, then thrown out. I have enough clutter.
My mom strings fishing line in an arch under her own wide doorway between living and dining areas, and hangs up the cards on the line. I’ve always liked how it looks.
I used to tape them around doorways, now I tape them around the mantel. I always display them b/c I like to look at them all season. Then I save the picture part from the cards I like at the end of the season and use the picture to decorate a wrapped package next year.
I have enjoyed putting up xmas card since I bought an over the door card display/organizer from Pier 1 a couple years back. Keep xmas cards up till the New Year, and then have baby announcement cards we recieve up the whole year. Just fun to look at, and people always make conversation on it.
We have a banister that leads to our 2nd floor and I usually wrap garland around the banister and once we start getting some cards in the mail I punch a hole in the corner of the card and string some ribbon though and tie the card the garland on the banister.
I haven’t decided what to do with ours. So far, we only have one, so I’m going to assume it might not be an issue.
Same as you: display them around a doorway. After Christmas, I trim up the picture cards and glue them to cardstock, then staple them all together and write “Christmas Pictures” on the front. It’s a cheesy little booklet, but since we get cards from basically the same people every year, it’s very fun to flip through and watch the children grow. I have a 2007 and 2008, and am looking forward to 2009.
Wait, no. I don’t actually have superpowers that let me see pictures into the future.
I have a 2006 and 2007, and this year I’ll get a 2008. Whatever.
YES! I do the same, both with hanging the cards and the looking forward to the mail in December. I LOVE CHRISTMAS CARDS!
I hang mine around the doorway…I love looking at them during the holiday season.
I do what some other people have done once Christmas is over…I cut the picture part of the card with my crafty scissors and I use them the following year for gift tags. I even cut the photo’s and use them when I send that particular person a gift the following year.
I scotch tape the photo cards around our door frames… and the regular cards sit on top of shelves/cabinets/hung over top of frames on the wall….
At our house they go on the fireplace mantle, and if we get a lot of cards we start putting them along the top of the piano in the living room. But typically we don’t get sooo many that we need to do that, so the fireplace mantle works fine.
I wish I received more Christmas cards, or had more people to send some too! Perhaps as I get a little older I’ll acquire more people to mail cards out to. I love sending and receiving mail, it’s so nice!
Here’s what I do with cards I’m done with: I cut the back inside off and discard it (unless the note was really special or something, for those I have a keepsake box). Then I store all the card images/not written on pieces of the cards and keep it for my future classroom. For kindergarten, they are perfect reusable scraps for a writing centre (when you provide children with lots of different things to write on, they often get excited to give it a go!).