recycled – Mediocre Mum

Christmas Garland Made from Recycled Cards

How to Recycle your Christmas Cards

I have mixed feelings about Christmas Cards. On one hand I love hearing from old friends, but they quickly begin to take over all the surfaces in the house. This year with a bit of blue tac I managed to keep on top of them.

Shortly after Christmas, that urge to de-Christmas my house set in, but what do you do with all the old cards? There are local schemes that recycle them for you, but as we had a few more days off school, I was looking for an activity to entertain my 7 year old.

Over the years we have made Mosaic Placemats with them, Thank you cards and Christmas tags. I had a quick look on Pinterest and came across an idea from Party Planning Center for creating Christmas Garland with them. I have a personal hatred of the store bought shiny garland so this was a perfect solution and it was relatively easy.

The most difficult part was locating a 2″ Circular Craft Punch, like any other time we decide to craft it always results in a trip to the shops as we aren’t well stocked in the craft department. I managed to find one at Hobbycraft.

I think they’re fairly self explanatory but the full instructions can be found at the link below.

How to Make Christmas Decorations with Recycle Paper

Now that we have the circular punch, we thought we’d do a few Thank you cards while we were at it.

What do you do with all your old Christmas Cards? Do you have any other craft activities I can use my punch for?

Thank you cards using left over Wrapping Paper!

What on earth can you do with all the left over wrapping paper? It takes you ages to wrap them and about 5 seconds for the kids to tear them apart. If I’m honest we do burn a lot of it but I do hold a small selection back for crafting.

I’ve done this in the past for Birthdays but decided to do it again for Christmas as it’s incredibly easy. I’m a bit of a stickler for Thank you cards as I feel it’s very important but do find them taxing at times.

You will need

Selection of wrapping paper
PVA glue
Water
A4 paper
Prit Stick
Scissors
Wiggly Scissors (Pinking or Scalloped)
A4 Card – any colour will do.

How to:

Tear the wrapping paper into pieces
Mix a bit of PVA glue and water
Cover the A4 paper, the more random the better using the PVA Glue
Leave to dry
Cut out a random selection of shapes. We chose hearts as it as for Thank you cards, but you could be a bit more creative and cut out a big T and Y for Thank you.
Cut the A4 card in half and then fold to make A5 cards.
Use the Prit Stick to Glue the shapes on the front of the cards
You can use the wiggly scissors to cut the edges of the card.

Voila you’re done!

If you decide to have a go I’d love to see the results! I’d also love more ideas for using up some of this paper.

I hope you’ve had a fabulous Christmas!

Win a years supply of cleaning products from Ecoforce worth £50

I find it fascinating what they can make with recycled products. Did you know they can make Fleece Jackets out of Plastic Bottles? I actually Googled how they do it.

I was sent a load of cleaning supplies to review from Ecoforce, which are all made from recyclable materials, some of you will see the humour in this as I don’t clean. I have a cleaner. However, I did think it may be a step too far to ask her to review them for me whilst I sit, play on the computer and drink wine.

However, the lovely people at Ecoforce have offered a chance to win a year’s supply of green cleaning goodies worth £50 to one of my readers.

The prize bundle will comprise:

EcoForce Peg Basket x 1
EcoForce Clothes Line x 1
Several of each of EcoForce sponges, scourers, dusters and cloths
EcoForce Bag Grips
EcoForce Pegs
Dishmatic
Dishmatic refills
Dishmatic Steel Scourer

To enter, simply complete the Rafflecopter Form below

a Rafflecopter giveaway