During the early part of the Pandemic, many of us took on home renovation projects, took up a new hobby or revisited an old one, organized our homes, and a plethora of other things we’d put off doing previously. One of the early DIY’s I did was to organize my many special greeting cards I’d accumulated over the years.
I’m not a hoarder I promise! I do collect certain things though. Being a pretty sentimental person, I tend to find it difficult to let go of greeting cards that special people have given me to mark special occasions in my life. I’ve sworn more times than I can count that I was going to throw them out but could never bring myself to do just that. So I set out to find a creative way to organize them that would cost next to nothing and allow my family and I to enjoy them when we are feeling nostalgic. Here’s what I came up with:
1. I saved all the corrugated cardboard we were bringing into the house (Hello, Amazon boxes, haha!).
2. I went through my big box of cards and divided them into categories. Ex. Wedding, Baby Shower for each child, Christmas (I just kept particularly special ones), Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Birthday, Sympathy.
3. Once I had groupings I ordered them with the largest cards in the back of the pile. I based my “cover” size on the largest sized card in the group. I then measured, marked and cut out pieces of the corrugated cardboard.
4. I punched holes in the covers using a large three hole punch, it’s preferable if you can center the holes along the edge of your cardboard pieces instead of being too close to either the top or bottom of the cover. You will likely only use 2 of the 3 holes that the hole punch can cut due to the sizing of most greeting cards.
5. Line up your cards with the newly punched covers to decide where to place the holes so that the cards will align with your front and back covers as neatly as possible. I marked with a pencil so I’d know exactly where to cut when I got each card into the punch. You will likely have to do each card separately due to the thickness of the card stock.
6. Decorate your covers. You can do just the front cover or front and back covers. You can even do inside the covers. It’s up to you and how creative you want to get and how much time you want to spend. I liked the “kraft paper brown” colour of the cardboard so I left it mostly naked and used stick on letters, patterned papers, gel markers and various other little scrapbooking decorations to decorate my covers. I kept it basic and did only the front covers on one side.
7. I then attached the covers to the groupings of cards using binder rings. I used two different sizes. In the pictures attached you will see one package says Shower Curtain Rings. I had a hard time finding the larger sized rings when I ran out mid way through the project and found these at Dollarama for $2 per package. Great find and they are EXACTLY the same as the more expensive binder rings you’d find at an office supply store.
Note: If you have other little mementos you’d like to add to your card books but they are too small to punch or you don’t want to punch a hole in them, you can put them in a pretty envelope and punch the envelope instead. You can then easily add to your card book and keep everything organized with the grouping it belongs with.
When I had the books completed, I placed them in a pretty keepsake box to protect them. The box can then be stored or put out on display in a living area where you can take a peek whenever you’re feeling a little sentimental or want to share with friends or family.
