Crochet Thanksgiving Card Decorations

I'm one of those people who still exchange paper cards with family and friends. I've saved some sentimental cards over the years, but I've never thought much about using cards to decorate for future holidays. They usually end up going out with my paper recycle. Ths year I saw an idea in Big Book of Christmas Crochetfor making gift tags and other projects using holiday cards. I decided they'd make nice hanging decorations using the same general directions.

I needed to purchase glue and colored plain index cards to back the cards. I had no issue finding those. What proved to be a challenge was the 1/8 inch hole punch. I eventually found the Fiskars Circle Hand Punch, 1/8 Inchat my local JoAnn's but it took me 2 attempst as the first time they were sold out. I couldn't get it shipped but I was able to purchase it and pick it up in the local store. It must be a hot item.

For some of you this might be familiar but it was new to me, the holes this makes are smaller than the holes you see in notebook paper. It makes sense as you'd want smaller holes for craft projects. That being said I've never given the size of hole pucnhes much thought, so it was something I discovered when I started this project. I didn't see this size at the local office supply stores when I looked. They did have the 1/4 inch size you normally think of when you see notebook paper.

I plan on continuing this tradition when I find other cards that I love and want to save. I will likely not do as many Christmas cards as I have lots of Christmas decorations, but it is a great way to enhance the other holidays which I do get cards for but often don't have many decorations.

With that in mind I will only hole punch one of these per day in the future. It is hard on the hands. The holes for the first one came out much better than the second.

An additional note for myself the pattern uses size 10 thread and a size 7 thread crochet hook. I had plenty of thread on hand but no size 7 thread hook so I used the size 5 thread hook and it worked fine. I mention this because I'm sure when I go to make this again I'll be wondering where I lost the size 7 hook when I made these. This is my reminder it was the 5 hook I used. The 7 has been MIA for some time now. Sadly I've not been able to find replacements for the Bates Bamboo thread hooks.

Another thing I did to make these decorations special is I cut the inner message and signature and glued it to the back of the decoration before punching the holes. After crocheting the border, I added the date to the back so I have some record of when the card was received and the decoration made.