The buzz word of the day is upcycle.
“Upcycling is the practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value.” – William McDonough and Michael Braungart in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.
Because I never take time to come up with a clever way to display my holiday greeting cards, by the end of December I am ready to clear the jumbled mass of paper. I’m sure I’ll do better next year. Maybe displaying them like this.
But for now, I have to deal with the clutter.
Step 1: Cut all the pictures out of photo cards, keeping the sides with names of senders in the separate pile with paper cards
Step 2: Sit with JumbleSon and replace all of last year’s photos in his “Friends and Family” cheap-o plastic photo sleeve album with new ones. (Note to self: make nicer, keep-sake album in near future) Talk about each person and his/her relationship to us (who, what, where, etc.). Repeat often.
Step 3: Reread each card, letter, etc. and send New Year’s greeting to each person who sent card or photo (ok, so I haven’t exactly done this yet but I’ll get there before the end of January)
Step 4: Discard photo card bits and prepare to upcycle paper cards
Step 5: Execute upcycling plan
There are some excellent ideas of ways to get more life out of greeting cards over at Crafting a Green World.
This year however, we are opting to do a used greeting card drive in our condo complex. Everything we collect in this envelope on our door (including our own cards) will go to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children and their recycled card program.
Card Collection Envelope
What about you? What will you do with all those holiday greetings this year?
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