Recycled Business Cards

Do you have old business cards laying around, maybe from a previous job, or just ones you have collected over the years?

Here is something that you may like to do with them? Make them into Christmas Tags

This is what I did -

Get your business cards, they must be blank on the reverse side.

Age them, using your preferred method.  I used Parisian Essence (a Browning Essence in Australia), Vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Allow them to dry.

I used a corner punch to round the corners, in the above photo. This is not necessary as I made them without this step and they look great.

Glue your aged business cards to the felt with ModPodge (ensure the printed side is face down).  You can fit 8 business cards on one sheet of felt, however to be really economical you can use up your smaller scraps of felt for this project.  Leave a little space between each card, so that you can cut around them.

Allow to dry.  You may need to place a weight on top of them, while they are drying.  A couple of heavy books will do the trick.  This ensures that they dry flat.

Use pinking shears to cut around each card, ensuring you leave a little bit of the felt showing.

Now comes the fun bit, glue on your decoration, in my case a Santa bottletop.  Use a strong glue like E6000 or Tiger glue.  Both of these are quite expensive in Australia, and I have found a really good glue from my local $2.00 shop.  It is called Silicon Glue by Craftworks. It did literally cost only $2.00 and it "Bonds metal, wood, fabric, card & glass" and "Glues like hot glue".

I am impressed with it, although this is the first time I have used it, so I will be interested to see long term results. It took a little longer to bond, but the adhesive is very strong when set.

Punch your tag hole in the top - use a strong metal punch, so that you can cleanly get through both the felt and card.

Stamp your greeting, I only had one stamp that would fit "Merry Christmas", although I like the finished result.  You could use rub-ons, stencils, write a message..

All that is left is to add a lovely Bakers Twine hanger to your tag, and you are finished.

I have about another 200 of these business cards, so I am sure you will see more projects with them being used in the future.

Imagine family gift cards, with a photo of the recipient in the bottle cap, and maybe birthday wishes?

You could glue pretty scrapbook paper to the back, or even newspaper or magazine pages?

Quick and Easy Project, and certainly one that you could do with your children.

Judy