Upcycling

We've had more-than-usual events this year, plus a family that loves to send cards. After staring at them on my corkboard for 4 months, thankful someone cares about the Gligs, I wondered what I would do with them all (and the ever-present question in the back of my stay-at-home-mom brain, How will I save money today?)

Some of these will go into Lachy's baby book:

Someof these will go into me and Jason's... file in the filing cabinet

(hmm, note to self: make this memory file more romantic somehow):

And then my favorite idea, recycle them! Not in a throw-in-the-right-colored-recyling-bin way, but upcycle them, a new term that means taking the original product and turning it into a different functioning product (maybe I'll submit my definition to Webster, see if he likes it for his book). Its not a word I came up with, I see it on ETSY and so I just copy the concept. Also, I've got upcycled items here:

(made by Brooke for Lachlan from a mens tee)

And here:

(made by my mom for Sunny from a pillowcase)

This is what I did with the cards I wanted to keep to make

into new birthday cards for my family and friends.

Take the cards that you like the front of, without writing on the inside cover of the front:

Then cut off the fronts, leaving the inside with the messages to... be thrown away.

Aw... so sad. I used my scrapbooking cutter thing to make straight cuts:

& I didnt take a picture of my finished product, but I wrote a simple message on the

back of the new card/postcard and Sunny & I made a trip to the mailbox and sent it away
 in an envelope that I've had saved in this box, where the rest of my new upcycled cards now rest,
 waiting for birthdays:

I know, right? Check out the organizing! I'm not Jenalee/Katrina organized, but parts of my life are...

Just know that if you recieve one of these upcycled cards, that I do love ya, I just dont have much $$$