goodbye christmas - card project

this weekend we put away christmas.  always a little sad about it but it felt good to get some much needed space back in our house.  i don't have a lot of decorations so it went pretty quick.  we even put the boxes away so that they don't sit on the garage floor for 6 months.

a few years ago i struggled with what to do with all of the christmas cards we get throughout the season.  now that everyone is sending photo cards i just couldn't throw them away.  so here's what i came up with.

here's how we display our cards as we get them.

Photo from 2009

i tape them directly to the wall.  i love having them on display like this.  after christmas i carefully take them down and remove the tape.  i pick one card where i like the graphic or the colors, a traditional card not a photo card.  that card becomes the cover of the book.  

this is the one i picked this year:

i loved the colors, and the cute little birds.  i take some chipboard, usually packaging from something i ordered and cut it to size.

i measured it to 6x7.5 inches.  i use my exacto knife and ruler to cut.  then i use my cropadile to punch holes in the chipboard.  i glued the card to the chipboard and added the year with red glitter stickers.

i use the chipboard as a guide to punch all of the cards that i am keeping.   i am considering getting one of these to make it even easier next year. for this book i used basic office supply rings to keep them all together but you can use ribbon if you have that on hand.

unfortunately, i did not get a picture of the finished product.  it's already packed away, but here are some pictures from my other books.

sometimes i get fancy and paint the chipboard or stamp the date.  here i used ribbon to keep the books together.

i realized that i never bound my book for 2009, so i did that one this year too.

in december i pull these out and put them in a basket as part of my holiday decor.  we all enjoy looking through them.  eventually i will throw some of them away.  but for now it is an easy way to keep them together.

what about you?  do you keep or throw away your cards?