Making picture cards

Every year we get a big stack of Christmas cards and every year I display them and then toss them out. 

Then a few years ago I started saving some of the nicer ones that had small, clearly defined pictures on the cards, and cutting out those pictures to use as gift tags on presents.  This works for the cards that are small, or have little pictures on them, but it doesn't work for the bigger cards, unfortunately, some of which are beautiful.  And so over the last few years I've kept a growing Ziploc bag full of the cut out fronts of Christmas cards that I think are lovely, and can't bear to throw away, waiting for inspiration to strike me on what to do with them!

This morning it struck!

Samuel has loved to look at them (like Mama, like son in regards to art) and since I have no practical reason to keep them pristine, I gave him a stack and sat him on my bed.  Friends, he sat quite happily sorting them into piles and naming objects off of the cards for, oh, maybe 45 minutes!  Which translates into twelve gazillion hours for a 21 month old.  He showed me the Christmas trees, the cats, the angels...and he was actually surprisingly gentle with them.

So I carefully counted out my favourites (and his) and decided that I would laminate the cards and give him something wonderful to do as 'quiet work'.  A simple, simple little way to keep my busy boy, well, busy in a useful way.