What to do with those Christmas Cards?

Here's a few environmentally friendly ideas for your Christmas cards now that the season is behind us. Recycling them provides companies such as Seventh Generation the post consumer paper it needs to produce their toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towels, and napkins. Whole Foods market makes their brand of these products under the 365 label. Even Staples sells printer paper made of 100% post consumer recycled paper. Don't forget to buy these items or it does little good to recycle.

Reusing your Christmas cards and to/from tags is an even better option. If you have to/from tags that open like greeting cards, keep the front of the tags and cut off the writing portion. Most of my tags this year were from the year before which also saves money. As for your holiday cards, you can cut out some of the pretty images and glue them onto a new piece of card stock to send out next year. This is a fun project for the kids to help you with.

If you like to keep your cards and all the photographs that come with them, the photo above is a scrapbook page made of Christmas cards. I saw this project a couple years ago on Two Peas in a Bucket. You cut up some of your cards into 1 1/2" squares and apply them to a 12"x12" piece of scrapbook card stock. This page has a pocket in it to hold all those cards with photos or handmade designs that you want to save. Now you have a beautiful scrapbook page and a safe place to keep those holiday cards and pictures.

Proud Tree Hugger

I love trees! Not only are they incredibly beautiful, but they provide homes to animals, shade on hot summer days and the oxygen we breath.

Four years ago my husband and I searched for a new place to call home. We could live just about anywhere since we both work at home so it was a matter of education for our son and what kind of environment we wanted to live. We chose North Carolina for a multitude of reasons, one being the trees!

Unfortunately, our earth and its trees are in jeopardy. Too many trees are cleared for infrastructure and products such as furniture and paper. But this is an issue we can easily do something about. Fall is the perfect season to plant a tree, but if you don't have room for a tree, you can make a donation to American Forests at http://www.americanforests.org/ and they'll plant some trees for you. You can also buy paper products such as facial tissue, toilet paper and paper towels made from recycled materials made by Seventh Generation. These products are not hard to find, you can purchase them at your local Target store. If you are lucky enough to live near a Whole Foods Market, their brand of recycled household paper, 365, is higher in post consumer recycled materials.

So get out there and plant a tree and hug another while you're at it!