Test your recycling skills

This post is a follow-up to the last swap and hopefully will help you to look at recycling in a different way. If you find you can recycle more, it will free up cash to spend on other things or, if you're on a budget, will increase your stash for no extra cost.

This is an anniversary card from our in-laws:



It's on pearlised card and the top heart is a cutout, with a red heart showing through from the inside back (the part where the greeting and message are). Most of the printed items on the front are gold, except for the little hearts at the bottom which are red. The back of the card is also pearlised, with largish plain areas between the top and maker's name in the middle, and maker's name and other printed information at the bottom. The inside of the card is white: the only thing on the inside of the front - apart from the cutout for the heart - is a repeat of the little heart and daisy line at the bottom. The inside of the back has the red heart, the heart and daisy motif, the greeting and the written message from the in-laws.

What would you recycle?

Lynda

I would cut the bottom border off - I have a drawer with
'long decorative pieces/borders' in and use them all the time.
The top part, sentiment and heart, I would use as the insert greeting.
The rest of the card would be put in my 'white card' draw. Pearlised
card is always useful to punch snowflakes etc.

All of it.....cut the bottom strip and use it as a 'ribbon'. Top part I would cut into a square or rectangle, and mount both onto a red base card. Like Steph, the middle bit could be used for punching, although in reality it would sit in a box and I would forget .

Any more ideas?

Lynda

I'd cover the greeting and where you parents signed inside, then resend the card as it is to someone else

eeeeerrr ,,,being honest , i wouldn't .......eeek am i in trouble

I'd use as much of it as I could but, boy doesn't this make you feel better about your own 'duff' cards, no offence meant Lynda, but it's not a stunner is it.
I'd probably use the top part as a tag then the rest as mats/punched pieces.

Ditto what the others have said. I have two tubs with bits cut off like the heart border, I actually forgot that they are recylcing LOL.

Kim, no not in trouble, we all do things different.

For the main I would def use the white card, if not in my white card draw I would use it to cut out nestie shapes or somethign.

Why should you be in trouble, Kim? If you don't want to recycle, that's fine: just wanted to give some ideas to those that like to do it or could do with the extra bits that it provides.

Lots of ideas there, including Kate's: if the card has a liner in, I often remove it and put a new one in, then pass them onto my friend who doesn't have a huge amount of cash to buy cards. SO your idea isn't that

I know what you mean, Karelyn - and this was a Hallmark one, too (goodness knows what it cost them).

But it just shows you how different our ideas are. I've done the thing of cutting off the borders in the past, but rarely do now as I've found they're never quite right for any of the projects I'm doing. I would keep the back for when I needed white pearl card but would turn the front into a new card blank. I would make it into a top-fold card: the border would be at the bottom of the back of the card (if you wanted it as a side-fold card, you could stick something over the hearts as the border would be at the side) and the elements on the top would be covered with whatever I used (probably a square of patterned paper covering all but the margin). If it was a birthday card, I might have kept the greeting instead, but I send very few anniversary cards so it's not really worth it for that.

Lynda

I cut everything out or use it for something as I make all my own postcards
to enter competitions with, so I can use the bits that some of you might
not. I have several draws of 'bits' but make cards regularly so I have got
a decent turnaround of leftovers.