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The following is posted directly from her site. Happy Scrapping!
What to do with holiday cards
Happy New Year, friends! I know many of you are cleaning up from the holidays. I enjoy decorating for Christmas with my family, and I really enjoy taking it all back down and packing it away because it means the house is back to less clutter. Anyone else with me on that?
The one decoration in our home that does not come down immediately after Christmas? Holiday cards! It’s one of our favorite traditions – to hang these on the wall (I just use plain Scotch tape) so we can see our loved ones’ faces & greetings. I love it so much that I usually leave them up through the month of January and sometimes even until Valentine’s Day.
Once the holidays are over and everything is put away … what do we do with all the greetings/cards/photos from our loved ones? Some options:
- throw them all away
- keep them in a box or container
- create traditional scrapbook pages with them
- punch a hole in the top corner of each and connect them all with a ring
- keep a few favorites on the refrigerator, toss the rest
- put them all in a Project Life 12×12 Envelope Page to place in your album
Everyone’s going to do what makes the most sense for them. For example, I used to save & store all those greetings. But several years ago I looked at all those ziplock baggies full of cards that I never ever looked at … and decided that I was done keeping those. I tossed them all. I love those people, but it really was clutter. Throwing those bags away was liberating and I don’t regret that. But I’m ready to do something with this year’s cards.
A solution
Today I’m sharing another option that I’m the most excited about: Get those greetings into Project Life pages! I know what you’re thinking: But they won’t fit! All those cards are different sizes and the pockets on most PL pages are 4×6 and 3×4. Well, stick with me. This is what I have in mind. This is what I’m going with OUR greetings when the cards come down in February.
For the purpose of blogging about this sooner rather than later (because many of you are cleaning up right now), I asked my friend Karolyn if I could do this with her collection of 2 or 3 years’ worth of greetings she’s been hanging onto.
STEP 1: GATHER
Get all the greetings in one place. Toss any that aren’t keepers. For example, I always toss the cards without pictures. They’re only sentimental to me if there is a handwritten message inside from grandparents or something. This is a good time to be sure that all the tape that might be on them gets peeled off. Be careful, as some paper types are more prone to tearing than others.
STEP 2: HAVE PAGES READY
I’m talking about Project Life Photo Pocket Pages, of course. Most of you already have these on-hand. You may only need to use a few pages. I can’t tell you which page design works best because that completely depends on the cards you are working with. I keep a variety on hand for this reason. What I ended up using for 2-3 years’ worth of Karolyn’s greetings? Designs A, B, C, F, and V.
STEP 3: TRIM THE PHOTOS
Just like what it sounds, you’re going to take each photo and trim it to be either a 4×6 or 3×4. Some will be better horizontal, some will be better vertical. This means you’ll be cropping some words, some background, maybe even a shoulder or the top of someone’s head. That’s okay. The point here is that by trimming the photos to these sizes, you are now able to quickly and easily slip ALL of the photos into Photo Pocket Pages so they’ll be forever preserved instead of not enjoying them at all.
The trimmer shown here is the one from American Crafts.
STEP 4: SLIP PHOTOS INTO POCKETS.
That’s the beauty of Project Life, of course. Simple, simple, simple. Helpful tip: You may want to trim all the photos first, then place them into piles like this: 4×6 horizontal, 4×6 vertical, 3×4 horizontal, 3×4 vertical. Then at the end of that step, you can be even more efficient as you grab the pages you need for the trimmed photos you have.
WHAT ABOUT THE MULTI-PHOTO CARDS?
No problem. Those can be trimmed down too. Just select a portion of the card that you want to keep – and cut that out. In most cases, this would be the one that shows the whole family, as opposed to the individual pictures.
You can then use adhesive on the back of that little photo and attach it to a Project Life 3×4 or 4×6 card (I prefer white for simplicity) … or you can use a little strip of cute Washi Tape at the top!
That’s it, my friends. Trim the photos. Slip them in. And you’re done.
A FEW LAST NOTES
1. In case you’re wondering, I put together a total of 16 pages (8 actual pages, each is double-sided) with Karolyn’s 2-3 years’ worth of pictures. Want to see them all? I’m sharing a 15-second video on facebook & instagram today, so you can see them all there. ***Update: Facebook is giving me a hard time about sharing the video, but it works just fine on instagram so you can see it there. If you don’t use instagram, no worries. Just click HERE and you’ll see the video.
2. As I hand these pages over to Karolyn, she can add names & dates to each photo if she wants … or not.
3. If you come across a 5×7 card that you just don’t want to crop, remember that we have 5×7 Page Protectors, too (vertical and horizontal), and they fit right in with the 3-ring albums just like all the other pages.
4. When you put your pages together, you’ll likely have a few pockets where there’s not a photo. Easy-peasy. Just add a festive PL card in those pockets, which only helps to emphasize the holiday theme. We have a Merry & Bright Mini Kit and also a Christmas Themed Cards pack, both of which can be found in many stores right now. Both items are also coming to our own online shop, once that launches.
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