Card Booklets

The word “repurpose” is kind of a buzzword in the world of crafting. Basically, it means taking something that isn't useful and finding a new purpose for it, usually with some degree of elbow grease involved. I like the concept because it justifies tucking back odds and ends, "just in case," and I’m always saving bits of ribbon and cute containers for this reason. However, there are just some areas where I stubbornly resist the repurposing trend, one of which (ironically) being the easiest things in the world to repurpose: cards.

I’m a (minor) card-hoarder. It’s an overdose of sentiment, I know, and it’s not even limited to the cards containing sweet notes from dear friends. Often I’ll keep cards that merely have a brief salutation and signature, simply because I don’t want to ‘throw away’ that person’s gesture of friendship and goodwill. This results in a (slightly) bulky collection of cards that I store in pretty photo boxes from Michaels. It’s not (terribly) out of hand, but my organization system hasn’t been ideal – I kept cards from different events in separate Ziploc bags. Last week, however, I stumbled on this idea, and it seemed so simple and effective that I decided to give it a try!

These journals appear to have a bit more to them (dividers, pockets, etc.), but the base concept is great. All that I needed was my hole-puncher and book rings, which turned out to be one of those items that you see everywhere until you need to actually purchase some! I finally resorted to Staples, which usually means getting exactly what I want for a bit more than I was hoping to pay (I play this game with white-out tape – seriously, these are the best kind and they aren’t in Wal-Mart or Target!). After the hunt for book rings, I was all set to start making my card booklets. I first made four booklets for my Christmas cards (three years’ worth!) and recent birthday cards. 
 

 

For the sake of this post, I made a fourth booklet and took pictures of the assembly steps. I decided to tackle the cards and notes from my brother that I've saved over the past few years: 

Proof of Brotherly Love

Step 1: Ordering. I preferred my cards in order from smallest-to-largest, so I stacked them up according to size. I ran into an issue with some of the smaller notes, but I decided to tuck them into an envelope, which worked well.

See? Perfect fit.

Step 2: Spacing. I used the smallest card (for me, the top card) as a guide for spacing my binder rings. I tried to space them a bit farther apart in order to accommodate some of the larger cards in the stack. Unless you want to measure everything out, make sure you indent the holes from the card’s edge at a consistent length that is easy to replicate (I just pushed the card as far in to my hole-puncher as it would go). Otherwise you won’t have a straight alignment.

Step 3: Punching. Using the top card as a guide, I marked with a Sharpie the hole positions on the all the rest of the cards, then went back and hole-punched. Tip: Don't do too many of these in one night, or you can seriously bruise your palm!

Step 4: Binding and Covering. Once all the holes are punched, it's pretty easy to thread the book rings through. In terms of making a cover, I just used a textured piece of cardstock - you can definitely go to much greater lengths, as mine are pretty basic.

And there you have it, a card booklet! Really easy and practical.

(the cover is an inside joke)

And, bonus - it can be used to collate programs from performances! I always keep my Kennedy Center programs (in a condensed form - since most of the program is adverts, I pull out the relevant pages) and tickets - this is a neat way to store them, especially since I was able to use the program cover from WICKED as the booklet cover (I have some self-adhesive laminating sheets that I used).

Only one playbill cover matched the show I attended!