on the cheap: christmas card scrapbook!

i guess this idea would only work as a gift for someone else if you were in the habit of saving all the christmas cards someone else sends you... but it's something i've wanted to do ever since we first got married & started sending out our own cards, especially since some of them have been handmade! it's especially ideal for christmas cards where they can vary really widely in size and not fit in traditional simple photo albums.

i originally saw this idea on young house love's blog as a baby book, and thought it would be a quick fix for archiving all the christmas cards i wanted to save. it really is a simple, simple project with just a few easy materials!

all you need is:
-an 8x8 diy scrapbook with slide-in pages
-a pack of 8x8 scrapbook papers, two-sided in pretty christmas-y patterns
-photo safe double stick tape/squares
-all your christmas cards!
-number stickers or stamps to note the years [optional]

step 1:
make sure your paper pack size fits your scrapbook size, ie: 8x8 and 8x8... this is completely key to it being the easiest project ever!
step 2:
pick a paper that coordinates with your card, and stick 4 double stick squares on the back of the card, one in each corner. slide out the white paper stock in the scrapbook sleeve, and slide in the pretty paper with your card attached.
step 3:
repeat for all your cards, and add number stickers or stamps to chronicle the years [i'm apparently terrible about not printing what year it is in the information on the card!]
and done! you can also make a fun title page with stamps or stickers, which i'm still planning to do for this one!
looking through the old cards made me realize how many of them i've ordered from shutterfly, especially our christmas card/baby announcement hybrid of 2008. they are just the best for christmas cards, baby announcements, or even new year's cards if you missed the boat on christmas one year! not entirely handmade, but you do get to pick a design and a photo and add your own info, and it's much easier to send out 100 christmas cards when you haven't sat up all night handstamping and gluing them [yeah... did that one year. and only sent 20 cards because of it!]

the best part is that this year, they're offering anyone who writes a blog 50 christmas cards for free! all the details are right here. you'd better believe i'm taking them up on it! now i just have to decide which photo to use this year...