“Ball Made of Recycled Christmas Cards” Craft

I had no idea how to title this post, so there ya go.  I realize it’s way after Christmas, so this is late just like our family’s Christmas newsletter that still hasn’t gone out.  Maybe it’ll be a Valentine’s Day family newsletter.

Back when I was in Girl Scouts, I remember making this neat craft with old Christmas cards.  When I first started with Daisies, I knew at some time we would make this craft.  So I began saving all of the covers of our Christmas cars.  Year after year, the cards started piling up in the crawlspace.  One day – I knew it was time!  So I pulled out the hundred or so cards for our upcoming Junior meeting and party.  Something I hoarded finally paid off! 

This is a great craft for girls, but I would wait until they are at least Juniors.  I think if they are any younger it might be a little too difficult for them.  I’m sure there are girls that are advanced enough to do it, but I would play it safe.  It’s a little tricky at first and can be very time-consuming.  I would allocate at least an hour if not more for this project.  If you’ve never done it before, make one yourself first.

I’ll provide links to the directions and templates, but it’ll probably be easier for me to show you the pictures first.  Here are the girls working on the project:

And here’s the final project!

Here’s a close-up of one I made (ignore the attic junk in the background):

So how do you make this “Ball Made of Recycled Christmas Cards?” (I swear there’s an original name for this craft, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it.  I even did Google searches and no dice.)  Here’s a good instructional along with a template you can download.  Instead of using a template, we brought in canned goods and used them for the circles.  We then donated the canned goods to the food pantry of the church that hosts our meetings.

So if this is something you think you’ll want to do with your troop in the future, start collecting those Christmas cards now!  I’ve started my pile again for down the road when my youngest becomes a Junior.  I suppose you could just purchase cheap Christmas cards, but then you technically wouldn’t be recycling them, now would you?