Holiday Countdown: Upcycled New Year

Storage box covered in magazine.
You could use wrapping paper
to create a festive version
of this project.

We all have our New Years resolutions and if yours relates to waste less, avoiding consumerism as much as possble, crafting with the kids, or creating some fun home decorations, here are some great projects for you.  Now that the holiday season is coming to an end and we have a ton of leftover wrapping paper and cards it is time to use them a second time.  Here are some of the best ways I found to upcycle the remnants of Christmas before you throw them out.

Christmas cards

Cards upcycled into jewelry
Make thank you or other holiday cards by cutting the old cards up
Cut out images from Christmas cards and use them to make cards similar to those in this video.  There are a plethora of tutorials on how to make cards on YouTube.  Cut outs from old cards will work just as well as prepared store bought sayings and images.



Another video from YouTube


You could also...

Make some ornaments for next year or for winter.  A simple way to accomplish this task is by using the cutouts, like you would in the tutorials above.  Just cut a hole through the top and thread a string through.

Create gift tags using the same cut out pieces.

Design your own scrapbook cutouts - I did this for our wedding album.  I cut off borders and cut out images. and used them to create frames for photos and backgrounds for text.

Create a 3-d star

Wrapping Paper Upcycling ideas

Use it to wrap candles that can be purchased at a dollar store.

Create your own gift bows

Thin paper is perfect for origami.

Shred to create easter hay or packaging for gift baskets and gift bags

Recover your lampshades.

Scrapbooking paper

Colorful paper also makes great book covers (it could be turned inside out as well).

use like you would magazine (or newspaper) and create any of these projects from an earlier post in our Holiday Countdown.