The holidays will be here before you know it and now is a great time to get organized in preparation for all the shopping, decorating, celebrations and gift and greeting card exchanges headed your way. It is much easier to organize one thing at a time, so let’s concentrate first on the annual holiday greeting cards.
Everyone enjoys receiving holiday cards. They’re a great opportunity to stay in touch with distant friends and family and perfect opportunities to send thoughtful wishes for the season to those you may see more often. Businesses find value in sending them as well for maintaining contact and building loyalty among those they do business with and for.
It is possible though to accumulate quite a collection of these wonderful cards over the years. Too nice to simply trash after the holidays when the decorations come down, many are kept indefinitely. In preparation for a new batch that may begin arriving in early November, take time now to deal with the ones you have on hand.
Sort. Gather all of the Thanksgiving cards, holiday and Christmas cards you’ve received in the past in one place. Most will be beautiful designs with detailed embossing and colorful sparkling foils but see who they are from and keep only those with sentimental meaning. Also keep those that would look great framed, but frame them immediately rather than leave them in the stack for review again next year. Photo cards are often treasured as well but there is no need to keep them if you aren’t all that close to those pictured.
Repurpose. Most greeting cards can be repurposed. Cut the card faces off and use them for holiday crafts. Trim designs down to use as gift tags or cut and fold them in half to use as thank you cards for the gifts you will most likely be receiving. Larger cards can be cut and folded into tiny gift boxes. Laminate others to use as holiday placemats or coasters. Glue them to blank cards and send out again as new. With a bit of easy creativity there is no end to the possibilities these pre-received cards can offer.
Recycle. If there is simply no way you feel your cards can be repurposed, put them in your recycling bin or take them to a recycling center. The paper can be reprocessed and reused to make new recycled cards for next year. You will be helping the environment as well as organizing your greeting cards collection.
Donate. Cut or tear the personalization or signed portion of the cards off and donate the rest to charities that can repurpose them. Many groups of children and adults would appreciate the opportunity to repurpose these beautiful designs. CardsDirect sponsors a recycling and reuse program for used or excess greeting cards for any occasion throughout the year. Cards received are sorted and organized and send on to organizations that can make use of them.
Now that you have successfully cleared the decks you are ready to organize your plans for this coming year’s holiday cards that you are sure to be sending and receiving.
Source by Linda Cress Dowdy
