Christmas Card Keepsake

              Every Christmas we are so blessed to receive Christmas cards with photos of our friends and their children.  For years I kept them in a photo album, placing them in chronological order, so we could see how the children grew over the years.  After doing this for a quarter of a century now, I decided it was time for a new approach.  I sat down this past week and sifted through my Christmas cards from 2010 that had not placed in my old photo album.   I pulled out the cards without photos which I will make into gifts tags.  I did keep a card front with art work from one of my favorite artists (NJ Woods)  to use as the cover for my Christmas book. I ended up with a nice mix of colors and sizes.

           I began punching holes in the cards-3 holes for the larger cards and 2 holes for the smaller cards. 



          The holes were punched on the left-hand side of the card or at the top of the card depending on which I thought would look nicer when placed in my book.

I grabbed some bells and ribbon from my craft stash and 3 hinged rings to connect my pages.

This is where things started to take shape:

      I began laying out my pages, alternating short and tall cards, to give more interest.  If  the card did not state the names of the people in the picture I added it on the back so that years from now, I would know who they were. When I was satisfied with the way things looked, I fed my hinged rings through all the layers and clasped them shut.  My book was intact, but was in need of embellishing.  I tied the ribbon and bells to each of the three rings and topped it off with a large gold glittered star.  I just love how it turned out!

 

I had so much fun that I pressed on and made a book from our 2011 Christmas cards.  

They truly will be a treasured keepsake!