My kids seemed to get an inordinate number of cards from school this year! Lots and lots of them! I think many kids gave a card to every child in the class so that none would feel left out. Many of them also came with a candy cane, chocolate, stickers or some other little gift. My kids were feeling pretty lucky each afternoon as they munched!
With all these cards lying around, I decided to do a little decorating – and keep them from forming piles all around the house! Luckily just as I made the decision, a parcel of products for me to try arrived! I hadn’t seen Scotch 3M Restickable Mounting Tabs before but I have used their hooks a lot around the house so I was confident they would work for this. I created a Christmas Card Tree on the kitchen wall.
I laid all my cards out on the floor first to check my design – just rows of cards getting wider to form a tree shape, then a couple at the bottom to make a trunk. Then I applied the adhesive and put them on my wall. The whole job took less than half an hour. I had to move a couple to get my rows right, but the tab just peels off the wall and then re-sticks. The hold is actually quite strong so you would need to be gentle when peeling lighter weight papers so that you didn’t tear them. These would be great for artworks and posters though, especially the ones that kids want to change often.
I know you want to know whether they came down cleanly, so I did a little test run a couple of days later. No problems at all. All the tabs just peel back off the wall and the cards. Yes, I had to be a little careful not to tear the cards, but that is still better than trying to get sticky tape back off them after they’ve been hung up somewhere. At my house, these tabs will be replacing products like Blu-tack I think – less “sticky mess” potential!
The Tabs are a double-sided adhesive that you can reposition on your wall and wash to reuse when they lose their stickiness. They come in strips, sheets and tabs but are easy to cut if you need them smaller. I cut some strips into tabs for hanging these cards. They are just like using double-sided tape: peel off one layer and stick to your item, then peel of the backing and stick to the wall. Quick and easy!
A few details for those who want to know:
- The Scotch 3M Restickable Tabs are sold at Officeworks and Bunnings stores
- Recommended Retail Price is $4.95
- They peel off walls cleanly and can be washed and reused multiple times
This Giveaway is now Closed – Thanks to everyone who entered
Giveaway
I have one full set of Restickable Tabs to give away, plus 20 sample packs to send to the first 20 Australian entries that don’t win. That’s lots of prizes!
To Enter:
To enter, leave me a comment on this post telling me about your Christmas cards – do you make cards? did you receive lots of cards? do your kids give a little gift with their cards to school friends – if so, what is it? how do you display your cards? what do you do with your cards after Christmas?
The Fine Print:
- Only one entry per person
- You must leave a valid email address for me to contact you for a valid entry
- Only open to Australian residents – apologies to my overseas readers
- Entries open with this post on Friday 21st December 2012 and close on Friday 4th January 2013 at 8pm Brisbane time
- The winner will be chosen by me from the valid entries and contacted before 7th January.
- If the winner doesn’t contact me, after 7 days I will choose a new winner.
- Once I have been in contact with the winner, I will announce the winner and send out your prize.
- I can’t take responsibility for any issues in the delivery process.
- The 20 sample packs will go to the first 20 entries that are not the winner. I will email each of these entrants after the winner is confirmed to get mailing details (so please do not put your mailing details in your comment for the world to see)
- If there are less than 20 entries eligible for the sample packs, I will decide how to distribute those packs to other entries when the time comes depending on how many there are left over. Rest assured, they will go to eligible entrants and not be kept by me.
I have started to make christmas cards in the last couple of years. I always have these grand plans of making them in October or November but that never happens. This year I only made the minimum number to send to relatives who live interstate. I found this year we haven’t received very many at all (to the exclusion of my daughter in prep). She received one from nearly every child in her class along with a candy cane or lollipop. She didn’t give any out this year, but I can see we will be next year (peer pressure). I am going to try and display mine like you have done in my entry hallway as at the moment they are just sitting in a pile. Lastly, yes I do recycle mine in a number of ways. I cut off pretty pictures which I sometimes use to make cards with, give them to the kids to cut up or simply put them in the recycle bin.
We have a string line set up across our living room, wrap it in tinsel and slip the cards onto the line as they come. We also add ornaments and Christmasy things, so it does look pretty. We do recycle our cards too, we cut the image off and use the back as a shopping list.
I started making my own photo gift cards for the first time last year, and I get the out in the mail to the family who LOVE getting something by snail mail. This year, I took the family up to Harvey Norman for a free 6×4 photo, scanned it to my computor and used photoshop to turn it into a gorgeous card with our families best wishes that I printed as a 6×4 photo for 15 cents each. All my friends and family love getting them, and it shows the progress of my kids each year. We didn’t get many cards this year which makes me a little sad, the few that arrived in the mail make my day every time, which is why it’s so important to me to get mine out with a little newsletter about the family. We like to string ours across the windows, they look pretty and add to the festive feel.
This is a GREAT giveaway, we love 3M products in this house and can’t get enough of them.
I usually do Christmas cards but have been working so much that I haven’t had time this year. I have only received about 5 cards in the mail so far but do have a load of them from my children’s classmates. My children didn’t give cards this year, they were too lazy (and/or tired) to write them out! We have venetian blinds in the lounge room so we just hook them over the blinds to display the front of the card. It’s quick, easy, no mess, no fuss. I do keep all cards from family & relatives from previous years (as well as all birthday cards), so I have quite a stash! I love the 3M idea to stick the cards on the wall, you could make any shape, or many shapes depending on the amount of cards you have. (Or use previous years’ cards too for more decoration). Merry Christmas to all!!
I’m pretty lazy when it comes to sending out Christmas cards, so I tend not to receive very many either! 🙂 I don’t mind though, we don’t have much room to show them off anyway, I usually hang up a piece of string and peg the cards on that.
I send Christmas cards every year, over 100, I love doing it and even though I mail merge the text in the cards and the envelopes, as I match the card and the envelope I think of that person fondly. I also ask myself do they still deserve to be on the LIST and most of them do. I also enclose a recent photo of my daughter with a magnet on the back, I love to visit friends and see my girl on their fridge all year round.
I love to receive them and they end up decorating the venetian blinds and Miss 3 now loves to visit the mailbox and open them and say “who this 1 from”.
I got heaps of cards from my students this year, including one of the most beautiful handmade cards I have ever seen. (I got a lot of candy canes too!)
We buy cards and we make our own. On store bought cards I usually write a personal note, poem, or quote that makes me think of the recipient. I save all our favorites from years past and we decorate all the inside doors with them.
I didn’t send any cards this year but received a few from my husband’s side of the family who are more traditional than mine. What did catch me by surprise was all the cards that my 5yo received from his kindy (daycare) friends. His pocket at kindy was full of cards with things like candy canes or Freddo Frogs sticky-taped to the front. The sweetest thing was that each child had handwritten their names in that special way only 5yos can. My son was really proud of his cards and I love your idea of displaying them – we’ll put his up on his bedroom door 🙂
I love sending and receiving Christmas cards – I love to incorporate them into the decorating whether they be on a card holder or on ribbons. I will definitely be trying a tree if I am lucky enough to win a pack
We didn’t send out any Christmas cards this year, but the kids received a lot of them. Lots of them came with candy canes and such inside them too. Maybe next year, if I am more on the ball, we might do them. I used to love giving and receiving Christmas cards when I was at school.
I really like your Christmas Card tree. I’m going to try to do that next year. Great idea! Love it.
I do make all of my Christmas Cards. I like them to be personalized.
SewCalGal
http://www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com
Please remove my entry. I overlooked this was only open to those living in Australia.
No problem! I saw your email as well and will pass it on after New Years Day. Enjoy the holiday!
Tonya
I live in canada so am not eligable for the draw…but i love your idea of putting the cards on the wall! This I will do next year….we get many cards at christmas and normally i put them in a star shapped basket, but next year they will be decorating the walls! I will use ‘fun tack’! A few of the messages above reminded me of my childhood and how my mother used to display her dards…she would hang a string across the front window and the cards would hang from it! just one of those memories i haven’t given a thought in many years! thank you for sharing ladies!
I love sending cards and I love getting them. One year I hope to be making all of my own cards to give at work, send across the country to friends and around the world. I think I should start now! ready to send out for the beginning of December!
Good luck to all who are able to join in and to the lucky one to win this great prize…It will be great to use for your kids ‘art work’ that they bring home from school! The hallowed hallway of your home will be transformed into a grand art gallery!!! Enjoy!
Jane
I was very slack this year, and ended up emailing out card/newsletter on the 22/12!! We as a family only received 4 cards, but Master 6 received about 10 from his kindy class!
I send out christmas cards to close friends and family. My daughter just had her last year at preschool so we did cards and pressie of jelly beans and a few stickers for the whole class. Our cards we recieve are hung up in our lounge. We will keep a few special ones the rest im sure my daughter will find a craft idea for 🙂
Love the Xmas tree idea! This year I wrote in store bought cards but previously have done photo cards which are more personable. We did get a lot of cards this year so just stored them on our buffet. Thanks for the chance to win!
We’ve displayed our Christmas cards on the Christmas card tree I made a few years ago!!
We didn’t get many cards this year. In fact I think the only cards we did receive were from the neighbours. We make our cards here. We did reindeer handprint cards which is always a big hit with the grandparents! I printed a lot of christmas printables and my 3 year old went mad colouring them in and then sticking them on the wall (with masking tape – it’s a good look!). We have them all through the house and we did arrange some of them into a christmas tree shape. It’s a bit disorganised with pictures literally on every wall or door but I love it because it’s miss 3’s creative christmas contribution all of her own making!
We always have a few card making days where my girls and I make an assortment of Christmas cards for our family and friends. It is a fun craft activity together for the holidays and also nice to be able to send someone something that has been handmade. As for displaying the Christmas cards we receive, I never have a good solution for that. I totally loved your idea and those tabs are amazing, I’ve never seen those before!
I was really slack with Christmas cards this year. I only sent out a few. But the kids did give their school and kindy friends cards.
Our were just displayed on the curtain rod in our new house. Things were way to unorganised here over Christmas to have them set up in any other way.
We hung our cards by little pegs on Wide ribbon attached to a decorated little canvas. Only the canvas needed to be hung and I did so with a 3m clear hook (loving the clear!!) the eldest (at 11) deemed himself too old to give out cards but the younger two gave out theirs with Christmas lollipops and pencils. They loved getting little presents with their cards, I think we had a sugar high every afternoon of December until school was out!
Hi Tonya. Hope you had a great Christmas. I find that we don’t receive many Christmas cards these days. We do receive lots of e-mail greetings and lots of Christmas letters, but not many actual cards. I guess lots of our friends are just like us – only make the effort to keep in touch once a year and then have to fit in a whole year’s worth of information! Two of our grandsons had great fun making lovely Christmas ornaments from previous year’s cards!
I normally make cards but this year I have a newborn and 2 year old to contend with. But I personalised each card with embellishments. I hang our cards on a piece of Christmas ribbon and pegs made with Christmas embellishments.
I send out cards every year, and enjoy hearing from many old family friends that fill us in on the past year each December. My son was excited to decorate his bedroom this year with the cards he received from his school friends – along the top of his posters and the bunting hanging in his room. This year he gave his classmates a pencil with an eraser on the top with his cards. Your Card Tree looks great – I also like the thought of making something similar, cutting out shapes/pictures from cards you are particularly fond of.
This year I sadly didn’t send cards at all. I had intended to but lost time between work and family commitments then suddenly it was too late with Christmas falling on the Tuesday. At least I have the book of stamps for Christmas 2013!
I don’t usually keep cards, only the ones I think will make a great pattern for embroidery or appliqué.
We received quite a few cards this year. I usually display them on a garland with crochet white snowflakes glued to wooden pegs. We also keep special older cards from deceased relatives to remember them by.
I used to sent out large amounts of cards…now I only send out a few (and only get a few too). This year I didn’t send out any as I got horribly sick AND couldn’t find my address book.
Ah shoot…just realized this is just for Austrailians.
Sorry, Gale! But thanks for sharing anyway!