Maybe you’re starting to take down your Christmas decorations during this “in between” week.  If not, no judgement here!  I’m not normally a procrastinator, but I put off taking my decorations down so I can enjoy my Christmas tree until New Years Day.  But whenever you take down your decorations, don’t throw away your Christmas cards!  Instead, make DIY Christmas card books to look back on for years to come!

A couple of years ago, struggling to recycle such beautiful photo Christmas cards, I decided to find a way to save them and enjoy them in coming years.  A pack of 1″ binder rings later, and I was on my way!

Using either a 2-hole punch or a single hole punch, punch two holes at the top of each Christmas card.  If using a single hole punch, use one of the cards as a template to be sure all of the holes are spaced the same.  Then simply stick a book ring through each set of holes.

Be sure to write the year on the back of at least a few of the cards, so you’ll always know in which year they were sent.  You could also make a cover card that says “2016 Photo Cards” in large print.  I  just used our own Christmas card as the cover, since that should give me a pretty good indication of the year anyway!

I store my DIY Christmas card books with all of our other Christmas books.  It’s so fun to flip through even just two years out… I can only imagine 10 years or more down the road!

Do you keep all of your Christmas cards?  I’d love to hear your ideas too!

P.S. Check out all of my other fun Christmas ideas here!  And don’t miss this special Christmas video tradition – start it this year!