Greeting Card Holder

One of my goals this year is to get more organized and this is a simple way to be one step ahead of the game.

I don't know about you, but I like receiving cards in the mail! I love it when I see an envelope, handwritten address, and know it's NOT JUST A BILL! So I'm going to be more proactive about being one of the people who SEND those cards, to let my friends and family know they are loved :) So what I'm going to do, and will post about on Monday ;), is to gather ALL of the cards I'm going to need ... for the year!

First things first, I need a place to put all of the cards! A few years back I bought a big box of hand made cards at Costco. I still have a few of the cards left, but the BOX was the best part of the purchase! For this project, all you really need is a box similarly shaped maybe, and a divider in the middle if possible.

I took all of the Costco cards out, and collected all of the other kinds of cards I had around the house. I had note cards, thank you cards, hand made cards from an awesome friend :) and other random blank cards in all kinds of places around the house, so I brought them all together. This helps me to take inventory and know what I will still need to find.

Next I made monthly dividers. They are not pretty. In fact, in looking at them now I'm seriously fighting the urge to redo the whole thing cause it's just not as cute as it could be. But that will be a project/post for another day.

I measured the two spots and cut cardstock from my scrappy stash to fit.

Then, even UNcuter, I folded a small piece of paper in half, wrote the month on it, and stapled it to the divider. YEEESH that's not cute ... but it IS functional. For the purposes of this project, and post, it will do until I have time to cutify it :)

I did one for each month, in varying colors. I labeled the first 6 months going left to right, and then started back on the left with July.

Then I went through my calendar and wrote on the front (would look MUCH better typed :-/) the date of each event, who's it is, and what type it is (i.e. birthday, anniversary). For things like Mother's Day that don't have a static date, I just wrote them without so the list is applicable for every year.

I put the dividers that came with the box on one side for cards that don't have a recipient yet. Things like Thank You cards or cards I already had, can be separated and if a situation comes up, I can look through and see if I have a card already :)

On the left I have my monthly dividers ready! Now all I have to do is go get those cards!! Stay tuned for Monday's post on that!