Recycled Christmas Card Ornaments

Last week I came up with a pretty cute way to recycle old Christmas cards into ornaments. I have a tendency (and I know I’m probably among many) to hang onto Christmas cards forever and ever, even though I rarely ever look at them again, and the collection just keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. It’s hard to throw them away though. Some of them are so pretty.

I thought making ornaments out of them would be a fun way to use up some of them, and actually get to SEE them again.

I came up with the idea to combine the recycled cards with jar lids because I actually had a couple of them sitting here, after I’d used the jars they came from for storing some craft supplies. Only problem was that once I started making these, a couple of jar lids wasn’t enough for me. I got all carried away and started taking lids from some food items that we hadn’t actually used yet. So, we had to hurry up and use that stuff like, that day. (Ki-ids! Dinnertime! We’re having salsa and a jar of pickles!)

Here’s what I did:

Use your lid to trace the part of the card that you want for the ornament.

Cut it out.

Don’t glue it in yet…first, the lid needs a hole for it to be able to hang later. I used a nail and just gave it a couple of whacks with a hammer, and that did the trick. Just make sure to put something underneath, like a block of wood, to protect your table from getting a hole too.

Here’s what you’ll have:

The problem I found at this point was that the hole was kind of jagged (so be careful), so I decided I would cover it with a grommet after I painted the lid (you can find some really decorative ones in the scrapbooking section at the craft store). Since I used a snowman card, I painted the back and sides with a pearl white acrylic paint (it took 2 coats to cover the orange)…

…and after impatiently waiting for the paint to dry, I glued in my card circle, and then I put the grommet in the hole I’d made. I couldn’t get it to lay perfectly flush, but it was good enough to cover the jagged edge and it made the hole look much nicer.

So this is where you can really start getting creative with your embellishments and do whatever you want to match the card you’re using…I touched up the front edge of the jar lid with the white paint (because that was the edge I’d sat it on earlier to dry from the first paint job), and then I coated the whole inside of the lid and the edge with matte Mod Podge. I did a thin coat on top of the card circle, and I went heavier with it on the inside rim.

I did that because I wanted to add a little bit of white glitter across the surface of the card to give it just a touch of sparkle, and then I wanted a thick layer of glitter around the edge, so the picture looked like it was framed in snow.

For a hanger, you could knot a piece of ribbon through the hole if you want to keep it simple… I like making things more complicated than they need to be so I made a little beaded drop to hang the ornament from. I just added a bead to a head pin, and put the pin up through the grommet from the bottom…

…and then added a couple more beads…

…and then twisted the end of the pin into a loop using needle nose pliers. After that, I added a jumpring.

I tied a tiny piece of silver trim around the top, added a couple of flat backed pearls, and voila! I wish my photo showed how sparkly it is…I think it is going to look pretty awesome next to the lights on the Christmas tree. :)

Here is another one I did. I added purple trim around the inside, and a second hole at the bottom to make a little beaded dangle.

Do you have any other ideas for these? Please post em here!

Tagged as: Christmas crafts, Christmas ornaments, ornament crafts, ornament DIY, ornament ideas, ornaments to make