Fancy Recycled Greeting Cards

I like to make greeting cards. Why not recycle old Christmas cards? You can make them as fancy as you want!

Scraps of Colored Paper (or any paper)

Recycled Christmas Cards, or other used cards

Regular White Paper

Wide Ribbon

Plastic Gems

Sequins

Hot Glue Gun (optional: you can use regular glue - it just takes longer to dry)

Glue Stick

Ruler

Pencil

Scissors

Tape

Optional: Computer and Printer

I often shop at dollar stores and buy odds and ends for crafts, cheaply. I get spools of all kinds of ribbons, sequins, and gems... I had a bunch of small left over colored pieces of paper and wanted to use them for cards but they weren't big enough to fold, so decided to use them as card fronts, and recycle some old Christmas cards to stick them to, (or you use any leftover unused Christmas cards, that way you also get envelopes for your homemade cards - cheaper than buying new packs of card envelopes!) (If you don't have any on hand you can find cheap packs of cards at the dollar store, they come with envelopes too.)

Gather your supplies. Get your old cards, your colored paper scraps, wide ribbon, thin ribbon, assorted plastic gems, and assorted sequins

Get your old card and measure the size for your card front. You can cut down your card if your scrap is smaller than the card, or trim your paper to fit the card.

I was able to add text with my computer ("Happy Birthday"), and print on the paper scrap, but that's optional.

Decide if you want a vertical card or horizontal card.

Take your wide ribbon and hold it up to the card front. Decide if you want it straight up and down, or horizontal or diagonal. For this one I decided on diagonal. Cut your ribbon an inch longer than the card front.

This ribbon happened to have wires in it; I decided to pull the wires out.

Take your ribbon and wrap it around the front of the card front and tape the ends to the back.

Find your gem (and or sequins). Place them around your card however you like.
Plug in your glue gun. Be careful, hot glue is hot! (surprise!) Put glue on your jewels and glue them onto your card front.

I cut a strip from my wide ribbon and made a small bow. Or you can use thin ribbon and make little bows if you want.

When it is dry, turn over your card front. Put hot glue around the edges of the card front, stick the front to the Christmas card. Do this quickly, as hot glue dries fast and you don't want it to get lumpy and not stick.

You now can take regular white paper and print the text you want for the inside of the card.

Hold up the paper to the light (if you printed it) so you can get it centered, trace around the card and cut to size.

Thinly glue around the edges of the inside of the card with your glue stick and stick it down. Trim the excess paper from the card back.

If you are going to hand write it, you can just glue the paper down first, but make sure the glue is dry and not lumpy before writing on it.

You are done!