making credit card ornaments

credit, debit and gift cards can be turned into colorful ornaments for free - and gift cards are colorful and available in a wide variety of colors and styles at nearly every store around.

Step 1 Variations in materials

we'll get to cutting in the next step, but this needs to be covered first : variations in raw materials.

cards vary in stiffness (typically thickness), and that variation needs to be taken into account when cutting into the card.

• credit and debit cards are often the stiffest, and require the deepest cuts to curl properly.
• membership cards (insurance companies and 'clubs' send these out in snail-mail solicitations) are the thinnest and flimsiest, requiring far more shallow cuts.  the out-of-control ornament at bottom left of the intro step photo was made from a magazine 'membership' subscription card, and demonstrates why shallow cutting at first is so important.
  
• gift cards are generally somewhere in between, but the iTunez card shown here is easily as thick as any credit card, so experience will be your best guide.

NOTE : the discount card used in the demonstration was closer to a membership card, for reference.

Comments

[urbanwoodswalker]

Npow this is so cool! I am going to try and make some flowers with this technique. It is hard on hands and scissors but the results are worth it! thank you for a new use for credit cards.