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48 DIY Christmas Card Holder Ideas That Turn Sweet Sentiments Into Festive Holiday Decor
Sending and receiving Christmas cards brings warmth into your heart and home during the holiday season. If you’ve already narrowed down the family photo you want to feature for your own Christmas card, you definitely wouldn’t be alone. The biggest question on your mind may well be this crucial one: to include the dog or not to include the dog? (We say include them.)
It’s a rare occasion that what’s coming through the mail slot isn’t junk mail or some bill or another. Throughout the holiday season, though, you can expect to receive at least a couple of season's greetings from family, friends, acquaintances, maybe even from exes. Getting life updates from those you haven’t touched base with in a while, seeing photos of how everyone is growing up, and rolling your eyes at lame winter-themed puns? It’s all about to start up again. And these cards are worth displaying, considering how much time and thought is put into creating them—and that’s not to mention labeling all of the envelopes.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to keep track of all of the cards you may receive, and to properly organize and show them off. This is especially true when you’re also inundated by other holiday decorations and gift wrapping. And, with all of the holiday spending you may already be overwhelmed with, purchasing a fancy card holder is just out of reach for many of us. Or, maybe you want to include some of your own flair into your home decor this year. Fortunately, we’ve found some of the craftier, more inviting DIY Christmas card holders for you to try your hand at!
Related: How to Sign a Christmas Card
48 DIY Christmas Card Holder Ideas
1. Framed Clothespin Card Display
Looking for a classy, vintage feel for your Christmas decorations this year? This display idea is #cottagecore to the max! And you can make it using just a few household objects: twine, clothes pins, and a frame. Add some more holiday accouterment (garland, ornaments, pinecones, whatever!) to make this one more personal.
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2. Twine Tree Holder
Big on the Christmas tree aesthetic motif? We’ve got you covered. This minimalist tree-fixture display is perfect for fitting many cards; as you fill it up, the cards resemble foliage. Plus, you probably already have everything you need already!
3. Holiday Hanging Card Holder
We all get tired of putting up and taking down our decorations year after year. Luckily, you can easily keep this card holder up all year long—just take down the cards at the end of each holiday season! Tasteful and modish, this hanging decoration is perfect for every season.
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4. Card Holder Runner
Having all of your cards displayed on a single length of material is both convenient and sharp. The best part of this DIY is how portable it is. We recommend this project if you want to hang your cards on the back of a door or from a railing.
5. Folded Magazine Card Holder
We’ve got a second life for that stack of magazines collecting dust on your coffee table. This card holder is small and easily perch-able on any spare surface you’ve got, perfect for those of us with a surplus of decorations! If you want to take an eco-conscious approach to your decor this year, start with this card holder.
6. Winter House Mantle Display
Ideal for decking out the fireplace, this DIY is a chic addition to your sitting room. Less in-yer-face Christmas-y, this card holder features a Winter Wonderland, while still drawing focus to all of the cards you’ve received.
7. Envelope Ornament Holder
Instead of making an entirely separate apparatus for showing off your cards, why not put them right on your tree? By making this no-sew holiday envelope, your cards can be hung from the boughs like ornaments. Now you won’t need to drag out those glass baubles and you won’t have to make space for an entire card holder.
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8. Clothespin Wreath
This clothespin wreath invites you to paint or dye the clothespins you already have before putting them together so anchor your Christmas cards. The more cards you have, the more voluminous your wreath will look. When building the wreath, you also get to personalize it based on how big or small you’d prefer for it to be based on the amount of space you have.
9. Santa’s Ladder Display
Repurposing that ladder you’ve got in the shed may be the best decor decision you’ve ever made. By intertwining garland, ribbon, or trimmings with the rails of a small ladder, you can attach holiday cards to it. Simple but stately, this might take some attention away from your tree!
10. Folded Book Card Holder
For more of a scholarly vibe, this folded book card holder fits the bill. For a simpler version, all you’ve really got to do is fold over the pages of a book (preferably one you don’t particularly like). You can easily go all out too, by simply adding pretty ribbon, enveloping the inside covers with wrapping paper, and inserting some other holiday materials into the folds. All of your guests will surely take you for an intellectual after catching sight of this.
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11. Cabinet Card Holders
Too often, we focus our decorating on dining rooms and sitting rooms, and leave our kitchens looking drab by comparison. Perhaps one of the easiest DIYs you’ll see this year, this ribbon card holder that you can assemble on the back of your kitchen cabinets will enliven your cooking space! We spend so much of the holiday season baking and cooking for ourselves and loved ones; you deserve to feel the holiday spirit in this room too.
12. Tree Branch Card Hanger
Rustic decor is having a renaissance lately. We love this branch hanger because, well, tree branches are free! Put on your winter jacket and do some foraging for the perfect branch that will fit both your vision and your space. This is a great excuse for an outing in the fresh winter air too.
13. Wooden Card Display
Looking for a less ostentatious way to show off your Christmas cards? You can make a card display stand using an extra wooden piece you have left over from household projects. If the wood is light enough, you can easily dye it to match the rest of your holiday decorations. Keep it simple and sleek with this wooden display.
14. Doorframe Card Wreath
Looking to spruce up that doorway? Look no further than the tree trimmings you’ve already got, and the cards you’ve already been sent. This garland-like decoration will enliven any doorway you’ve got!
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15. Rail Trimming Card Display
Placing garland or tree trimmings around your stairway railing is nothing new. But using this decor in order to exhibit your Christmas cards? What a brilliant idea for improving classic holiday decor! All you need in addition to your trimmings or garland is some clothes pins or clips for affixing the cards.
16. Christmas Card Wall Tree
Not feeling a complex DIY project for your cards this year? A wall tree is the ideal low-effort, high-outcome card display. All you need for this wall decoration is three Command hooks, twine or ribbon, mini clothes pins, and a star or bow for the top! Of course, you’ll need some wall space and Christmas cards too.
17. Balloon Tree Display
Hope you’ve got strong lungs for this one! Using balloons of various sizes to construct a tree-like shape, you can create a visually compelling cardholder. Just affix the cards to your balloon tree using regular scotch tape!
18. Coffee Table Christmas Card Booklets
Rather than trying to show off all of the cards you’ve gotten using a large display, you can create something of a coffee table book for them. Houseguests can flip through the cards you’ve received if you choose this approach, and you don’t need more space than the corner of your coffee table. The best part? To make this, all you need is a three-inch binder ring and a piece of ribbon. As you collect cards over the years, you can make a different booklet for each year, displaying the cards you’ve gotten over time all at once!
19. Vertical Shutter Display
Of the odds and ends you’ve acquired over the years from garage sales or leftover from home renovations, it wouldn’t be rare to find window shutters from years past. With a little sprucing up, that shutter can make a pretty handy vintage card display, suitable for any corner of your home. You can even dye the wood for a bit more panache, or leave it with its natural color to keep a bucolic atmosphere.
20. Card Bouquet
Using a couple of handfuls of leaf-baren twigs, and some kind of vase, plus ribbon, you’ve got a unique and picturesque card display centerpiece. Each card can be attached to this “bouquet” by hole punching it and stringing it through with ribbon, like a tree ornament. Use a larger, more extravagant ribbon to loop around the vase. No one else will have such an interesting, wintry concept to display their cards!
21. Spiral Pillar Card Display
If you find the typical glittering garland or trimmings to be a bit too much for your taste, a minimalist card display like this one may be more your speed. Around a pillar, wrap a long length of nautical rope. You can either tuck the cards you receive into the rope, or attach them using clothes pins. This lower-concept piece will fit in with any decor!
22. Vintage Sled Display Piece
Going through your childhood knick-knacks in your parents’ house, or walking among older pieces in an antique shop, an old sled is just too cool not to take back home. While you may feel a bit unsafe riding one of these down a snowy hill, it can still serve a purpose during the holiday season. Stringing your holiday cards around the slats of one of these sleds will bring this venerable toy back from Christmas past into Christmas present.
23. Exploding Envelope Wall Display
Think outside the envelope with your wall decor this holiday season! This card display wall art is imaginative yet straightforward—anyone with an envelope and wall-safe tape can go to town on this concept. No artistic aptitude is necessary!
24. Clipboard Card Holders
Hanging up a few mini clipboards and using them to sort and show your holiday cards is a fresh take on a wall display. Paint each one a different color to match the room’s color scheme. More than one card can be clipped to each board, too.
25. Chicken Wire Fence Card Frame
Placing a chicken wire fence into a large frame would let you display so many cards at once! Mini clothes pins will let you affix these cards anywhere within the frame, plus you can add other Christmas decorations between cards.
26. American Map Card Spread
Expecting cards from people all across the country? The perfect way to exhibit them could be to map out the cards by place, based on a map of America. Draw out a basic map or purchase one, then append the cards you’ve received to the locations from where they arrived.
27. Painted Cork Board Tile Display
Rather than just pin your cards to a boring cork board, you could instead create a dynamic holiday piece with smaller cork tiles. Paint each one using letters in order to spell something out, or do a basic pattern. Then, hang them up with wall-safe tape or Command strips! Just use thumbtacks to stick the cards you get to the boards however you see fit!
28. Rustic Plank Display
If you’re expecting many cards this year, organizing all of them can be a stressful process. You can personalize a longer wooden plank for the holidays, gluing clothes pins to either side, and attach cards as the season continues. Rather than try to crowd cards into a smaller card holder, you can use this display as a conversation piece, leaning it against your fireplace or in the corner.
29. Christmas Sign Ribbon Holder
Rather than set the cards up by themselves, spread the holiday cheer with a little sign. A little acrylic paint goes a long way with this cardholder, and you can write out whatever you want! A few good ones to consider are: “Merry Mail,” “Letters to Santa” or the classic “Seasons Greetings.” Depending on how big you want your sign to be, you can attach between two and five lengths of ribbon below it, using mini clothes pins to attach cards.
30. Quilted Card Holder
Because this holder looks so cozy and opulent, you may expect making it to be time-consuming and complicated. Rest assured, while this quilted piece is chic, it’s not a drag to put together. All you need is a little sewing expertise and some extra fabric in a couple of colors and patterns. This cardholder makes for a fantastic DIY housewarming or holiday gift, too!
31. Vertical Yule Log Display
This card display can be hung up or used on a horizontal surface, depending on your preferences. Splitting a small log in half, make evenly spaced diagonal cuts along its surface using a hand saw. Each of these cuts should fit a few cards, which you can fan out to best display them.
32. Circular Ribbon Card Frame
With a circular metal frame and wider pieces of holiday ribbon, you can have a classy cardholder in minutes! Around the rim of the frame, you can also fasten other holiday adornments, like bows or ornaments.
33. Chimney Card Basket
Put all of your cards together in a basket of your own making! You can decorate it to look just like a chimney for Santa by using brick-like patterned fabric as well as fleece fabric lining to resemble snow!
34. Wrapped Frame Card Display
Instead of finding a new frame to use, or removing the photo from one you’ve already got, this card display only requires what you’ve already got. Just cover the glass of any frame (even one that already has a picture inside) with wrapping paper, and stick cards onto the paper as they come in using double-sided tape! When the holiday season is over, you can just remove the wrapping paper without any fuss.
35. Bike Wheel Card Holder
Having a bike wheel up on your wall at any time is a pretty neat design decision. The spokes on these wheels, though, actually provide for holding holiday cards as if designed to do so. Throw in some mini clothes pins and attach some holiday lights and a bow? Voila! This is the cardholder you never knew you needed.
36. Macrame Card Envelope
Want to try your hand at macrame? This card envelope is pretty simple work if you’re good with your hands—though it may take a little while to complete. Use a small branch or a piece of wood at the top for hanging purposes, and you’ve got yourself a whimsical little cardholder that you may want to keep out even past the holiday season.