It seems wasteful to throw greeting cards away. Fortunately, I have some clever ideas on how you can recycle or repurpose them.

Donating

Donate to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. St. Jude’s is a charity organization that helps abused and at-risk children, teens, young adults and families.

They accept greeting card donations and use them to create new cards that they sell to benefit the charity.

They only use the front of the greeting cards, and they don’t accept Hallmark, American Greetings or Disney cards due to copyright laws.

Mail the cards to:

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children

Recycled Card Program

100 St. Jude’s Street

Boulder City, NV 89005

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children

Check for places in your local community that may accept card donations. Daycare centers and schools often use them for crafting and other purposes.

Also check with your local library, nursing homes, senior centers, homes for the disabled, art schools and art centers.

Repurposing

Scan & Save

If there are cards you would like to keep but want to avoid the clutter, scan them to your computer. Then you can always look back at them without keeping the actual card.

Make Gift Tags

You can use any part of the card to make gift tags for packages. Often the cards have lovely pictures and artwork. Cut out portions of the cards to attach to gifts. You can get creative with different shapes and by attaching ribbons, strings and other decorative items to the tags.

Notes

Use blank areas of the card for notepaper. Cut out what you can use and put them in your office or kitchen for lists, notes and other things.

Send a Note

Cut out the front of the card, fold it over and use it to send a note to a friend or loved one, or write a note to your child and tuck it in their backpack or lunchbox as a nice surprise.

Seating Assignment Place Cards

Use the front of the card to create seating assignment name cards for dinner parties, birthday parties, holiday parties, weddings or other special occasions.

Garland

Cut the picture on the front of the card into different shapes such as triangles, squares, stars, hearts, whatever you like. Then glue them to a pretty ribbon to hang at a party.

Frame Them

Some of the artwork on greeting cards is beautiful. You can frame these to display in your home or office or to give as a gift.

Post Cards

Use the front of the card and send a post card. Decorate the back and add a note. It is nice to receive actual mail today when so much of our communication is digital.

Make a New Card

Use a piece of construction paper and cut it down to the size of the greeting card, glue it to the inside of the card. Write your own personal message and send it to someone else.

Gift Card Holder

Use the front of the card to make a gift card holder.

Shred

To use as stuffing for packages.

Scrapbook

If there are cards you want to save because they are from someone special or have some sentimental value create a scrap book to save them in.

Bookmarks

Pretty greeting cards make great bookmarks. Cut them into different shapes and attach a ribbon. These make nice gifts for book lovers.

Crafts

Get creative, some ideas are small gift boxes, placemats, coasters, ornaments, wall hangings, wreaths, holiday center pieces, collages and more. Check out Pinterest, users there share tons of creative ideas.