Christmas Card Book

 If you have ever given me a card, it lives somewhere in my house.  Look, I'm not going to say I'm a pack rat....mostly b/c I'm still worried Hoarders will run out of story ideas and show up with the film crew, but it would be fair to say I'm very....very sentimental.  A few months ago I started seeing cards bound together with rings from birthdays etc pinterest, and I decided this year instead of storing my Christmas cards somewhere in the garage....which looks suspiciously like the first thirty minutes of Hoarders....never mind, anyway, instead of placing them in neat, organized, files along with all the the other carefully stored and filed items in my uncluttered house (bwa ha ha ha ha ha), I decided to bind my cards in a book. 

 

Stop the presses....I actually removed them from their envelopes and recycled these envelopes....right after I cut off the stamps to send to my friend Maurine's grandmother...who does something with these.....throwing away envelopes....kind of a big deal, I like envelopes b/c they have the date on them that tell you when the letter came, but that's another TLC show entirely....

I bought some cute scrapbook paper, because the 7,345 pieces of Christmas paper in my scrapbook supplies, obviously, wasn't going to work. 

 This is also an environmentally friendly craft BECAUSE I used scraps of cardboard from some Christmas gift that I cut down to 5x7.  I covered the boards with scrapbook paper, and added some doo dads, and then punched two holes in the sides of the covers and all the cards, and threaded them through and snapped them closed to form a book.  Look familiar, Heather?

 Here it is opened up.....you get the idea....

 ....but here is the additional idea I love and have to share.  My friend Mary told me last year she kept her Christmas cards out in a bucket all day (Mary is full of clever ideas).  She flips to a new one every day and prayers for this family.  I LOVE this idea.  I'm going to take a leaf out of her book, and you better believe I sent her a card this year....I thought about sending her 2...or 24 cards this Christmas to make sure I hit that prayer list a lot.  So, this year....this is my 2011 prayer binder, as well as a fun way to store the cards and letters I received that reflect a year in the life of my friends!  I'm planning on doing this each year because I can.