By Diana Saufley

Choosing a special gift for your Christmas recipients’ can be a challenge.  Trying to choose unique gifts that will be appreciated but also fit into your gifting budget is something we all struggle with.  After the gift is purchased, the next challenge is finding a special way to present the gift but it can be custom done with little expense.

As you receive your Christmas cards this year, display them proudly during the holidays to create a festive & custom décor in your home.  After Christmas is over, be sure to save those cards to fashion beautiful and custom gifts for next year.  You can use the same idea for birthdays and other special events utilizing the face of cards from those occasions.  The steps to create personally customized gifts are outlined below:

• Gather your cards
• Preferably use a paper cutter but scissors will do the job too.
• Cut the face of the card from the back.  *Make sure nothing too personal is written on the back side of the face of the card since it might be read after removal from the gift.
• Sort the cards by size, shape, design or color.
• When storing card faces, place in a container that will prevent them from bending, stain or extreme heat. * I like to store the card faces, nametags and ribbons in a stackable plastic container to make gift wrapping easy.
• Choose wrapping paper with contrast or coordinating colors and match up with the card faces.
• Choose ribbon, bows and name tags that also coordinate or contrast with the wrapping paper and card faces.  It’s a great idea to buy these on sale right after Christmas to organize next year’s Christmas gift wrapping).
• Wrap your gift or place in a decorative gift bag. Choose a card face that compliments the paper, is of similar colors, themes or has a contrast color.
• Wrap ribbon around the gift if using a gift box and secure the ribbon.
• Place the card face onto the gift or gift bag and secure with tape. 
• Either write TO: and FROM: on the card face or use a name tag, strategically placed, on the gift and secure with tape.
• If possible, give a gift with the face card to the person who sent the card the year(s) prior.  Imagine their excitement to see that you took the effort to gift it back to them!

This gift wrapping system creates a distinctive look of your gift with little costs, but with a personalized touch.  Your gift recipient will know that you took the time to create such a nice looking gift.  Also, stacking gifts is much easier when using this design method since bows can be hard to stack and often fall off.  And finally one of the best gifts is recycling the card faces for someone else to enjoy.