"Deck" the Halls!

I've been wanting to use some of my large stash of old decks of playing cards for a project. When I decided to do a form of lacing cards with them with my 4h club, I asked my kids to help me come up with a pun.

A couple of seconds later, my son came up with "deck the halls" and I loved it!

So, paint and decks of cards and yarn... (that package is cut from another Christmas designed deck of cards)

The 4h kids did most of the painting, then I punched all the cards for them to stitch.  (The santa hat and candy cane are cut from another card and glued on)

   I try to have our projects include practicing some skill instead of just cutting and pasting.  Much is too hard for many of the kids, but then their parents help them.  It's a challenge to pick projects that challenge the older kids in the club, but still allow the younger ones to be part of it.

We then punched 2 1/2" circles from the cards and spiral cut them adding a sparkly pom pom on top.

To make little "trees" or "spiral thingies" ha!

One Mom brought her die cut machine and we cut letters.

Which reminded me that our Public Library has a die cut machine...so I went down later and cut more letters!

We even strung together the cards that were punched out.

Of course we needed an angel.

One quick shot of it up.

My youngest and myself by the tree. (More members were there to decorate, but I didn't think to ask for parental permission.) Our community has a parade of trees and our club has participated for a lot of years.  The tree is only up for one day, but I think it's worth the effort for the kids to make and learn something!

And, I have more letters punched out of cards for use here at home. :)

I would love to do some mixed media collage work on playing cards for a tree here at home...maybe next year?!

I'm linking this post up with Linda at Coastal Charm's Show and Share post.