DIY Guide: Make a Wedding Card Book!

In the months before my wedding, I started noticing that huge amounts of wedding greeting cards were taking up space in stashes all across my bedroom. My then fiancé suggested that we toss the cards in the trash. “After all,” he said, “we can’t keep a bunch of loose cards forever.”

I begged to differ, of course. So many people had written unbelievably sweet notes inside glittery, expensive cards, and I couldn’t stand the thoughts of throwing them away! That’s when I suddenly got an amazing idea: make a book out of them. After all, making a book out of your wedding greeting cards lets you keep all the lovely sentiments and well wishes of your close friends and family members for many years without cluttering up your house...or seeming like a hoarder!

Even better is that this takes very little effort, too. My husband and I recently celebrated our one-year anniversary, so I decided to make a book out of the cards we received for the occasion to illustrate. Read on for step-by-step instructions below!

What you’ll need:

• A hole punch (I use a three-hole punch so that I can avoid measuring the distance between punches on each card.)
• Ribbon (Gift wrapping ribbon tends to work really well with this project.)
• Your wedding greeting cards!
• Optional: two copies of your wedding invitation for the front and back “covers.”

1. Simply punch two holes in each card along the spine. Be sure each punch mark is the same distance apart on each card.

2. Measure your ribbon. Estimate how long you will need the ribbon in order to tie all cards together, and then double this roughly for one piece. Cut two pieces of the same length.

3. Start by stringing the ribbon through the two punches on either the front or back “cover” of your book. This can be a card or a copy of your wedding invitation, as I used for my own project. (In my pictures, I begin with the front cover, but it is often easier to start with the back cover and work your way up. If you start with the back cover and work your way up, you will be able to tie bows at the front cover. If you start with the front cover and work your way down, you will be able to tie bows at the back cover. When you have a small number of cards to tie together, you can string one of the two pieces of ribbon at each punch mark back through to the other side, then tie bows around the spine of your new book.)

4. Tie your ribbon twice at each punch mark on your cover.

5. Take one of the two pieces from each punch mark and string the next card. Tie your ribbon once in both places.

6. Repeat until you have tied all your cards. Once you’ve tied your front or back cover on, tie your ribbon twice at each mark.

7. Either tie your ribbon in a bow, or string one of the two pieces back through to the other side, and tie a bow around the spine.

Voila! Now you have a cute wedding craft idea that you can use for all important cards in your future! 

What do you think of this crafty idea? Let us know in the comments below!