How do people display their cards?

November 21, 2018 4:44 PM

Be it holidays or birthdays or other event, I love getting cards and need a better way to display them. They stay up forever in my abode, but the bulletin board is....boring.

Any, and all ideas are interesting. So....?

posted by mightshould to Home & Garden (19 answers total)

I put a length of twine up with thumbtacks on my wooden mantel, and clip cards to it with wooden clothespins. It's really cheerful.
posted by 41swans at 4:50 PM on November 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

This is where we put our cards:
On top of the fireplace mantle
On the fridge doors or side
On shelves (either bookshelves or decorative ones)
On top of the piano
On window sills
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:52 PM on November 21, 2018

This is more holiday specific, but I put holiday/Christmas cards on my tree and then store them when the holidays are over. Makes for a very pretty and cheerful display!
posted by sprezzy at 4:59 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Get yourself an IKEA Dignitet. Then you can string up your cards like this.
posted by cleverevans at 5:12 PM on November 21, 2018

I keep the good ones on a bookshelf - mines an expedit but this doesn’t matter - mixed in with other trinkets and souvenirs. I use little boxes to raise some and create “visual interest”.
posted by OrangeVelour at 5:16 PM on November 21, 2018

When I was a kid, we used to have a big glass-top table (where the glass rested on a solid wooden table as opposed to just resting on a frame). My mother would lift up the glass and put all the cards on the table underneath the glass. I was a lovely display.
posted by acidnova at 5:17 PM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, we have the ikea wire thing, too.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 5:20 PM on November 21, 2018

This is a little more on the "long-term storage" side of things, but if you love them, you should know about binding them.
posted by teremala at 5:26 PM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I tape them up on the hallway walls, right around the part where you leave the living room to go back to the bedrooms/bathrooms. Last year for a number of cards all I lost my Scotch tape and all I could find was gold washi tape, which was actually great and I might set out a few rolls for the purpose this year - I tape them to the wall from the inside, angled a little so they stay closed, but you can open and look inside when you want.

Eventually they sort of form their own organic pattern, but I try to spread them out a little above and below eye level.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:43 PM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also Christmas-specific but my grandmother had a tabletop tree and displayed the cards flat in a circle around the base.
posted by sm1tten at 6:53 PM on November 21, 2018

We strung a ribbon up and hung cards from it, just laying the card over the ribbon, but I like Lyn Never's idea better and may try to persuade the fam to switch to that.
posted by anadem at 8:19 PM on November 21, 2018

Nail up a series of parallel wooden rails with a groove or a lip like this. I did this for my collection of postcards.
posted by Leontine at 9:21 PM on November 21, 2018

Generally, I put cards on the mantel, and when it gets too cluttered I sort the oldest/weakest cards into an accordion file where they are alphabetized by sender. I also have a hanging mobile with clips for postcards. At one time in the past I had pockets made from assorted fabric samples tacked to the wall, which could have a card or a thin book tucked inside.
posted by aws17576 at 9:48 PM on November 21, 2018

My grandma used to have something that looked like a used paper towel with yarn threaded through the holes over and over until the yarn completely hid the cardboard. Each string could hold one card by its crease. Once you put enough cards through each string, the whole thing looks sort of like a flower, and you could flip through each card to see them all. You can hold probably a hundred cards this way and use it as a cute display for your coffee table.

It could work for postcards if you attach them to another piece of cardboard and create a fold between the two pieces.
posted by Penguin48 at 11:40 PM on November 21, 2018

I don't put up cards, but I do put up prints and images clipped with binder clips to a large mesh wire panel hanging on my wall. This is similar. I prefer it because I like the orderly appearance even when there is a wide range of images in different sizes and colours hanging at different heights and distances.
posted by tavegyl at 1:39 AM on November 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

My grandmother used to have a tabletop tree made of wooden dowels she hung cards on. My parents put them on the mantel.

My husband's parents tape them around the doorway between their kitchen and living room. We've started doing that, too. Makes it look very festive! Also doesn't take up shelf or tabletop space.
posted by abeja bicicleta at 4:09 AM on November 22, 2018

You don't say how many cards you get. We get hundreds, so many of the above suggestions wouldn't be practical. We use a pack of 3M 'mini hooks' and a load of these little plastic pegs on a string things. You can make your own with any decorative string and some mini clothes pegs, or even decorative paper clips. We hang ours in 3 foot lengths along a fairly long wall. Once we've filled the length of the wall, we just add another row a card's height below the other one.
posted by pipeski at 4:39 AM on November 22, 2018

Wreath card holder. Amazon sells several types and I'm sure you can get one from local stores as well.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:39 AM on November 22, 2018

Make Christmas cards your theme for your holiday decor this year. Decorate a staircase with a row on each facer and on the side of the stair case with one under each tread. Clear all the regular pictures off the walls and make geometric and coloured designs with them after deciding on the patterns on a large table. Get a clear plastic table cloth and have them laid out on the table under the cloth - you will need to anchor them to the table with blue tack or something f the table will be in use.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:05 AM on November 22, 2018