by Belinda Beasley

Created on: October 09, 2009

Nursing homes are always searching for new craft ideas for their residents. Creating something special can often bring a smile to a nursing home resident's face, or provide a few moments of joy in an otherwise boring day. Crafting also allows the residents to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in their endeavors. Christmas provides a time when the residents can create simple, but festive crafts. Recycled Christmas cards can be a great tool for nursing home crafts.

One very easy craft for nursing home residents is to use the front of a recycled Christmas card and make a picture to hang in their room. After a volunteer or activity director has cut the cards apart, provide some glue and different types of materials that can be glued around the picture to create a frame of sorts. Before gluing trim around the picture, glue the card to a stiffer piece of cardboard, poster board, or card stock, in order to make it sturdier. Different types of ribbon or trims can be found at fabric and hobby stores and would create nice frames around the card.

Besides gluing trim around the recycled Christmas cards, nursing home residents could also sprinkle glitter or confetti on the design, or they could choose to glue a bit of cotton to a part of the card to create the look of snow. This is especially nice if the card has design which includes a house whose roof is covered with snow.

Recycled Christmas cards could also be used to create an ornament. The easiest and quickest way to accomplish this is to have the residents punch a hole in the top of the card and then thread a piece of yarn through the hole. Someone may need to help them tie a knot in the yarn to create a loop. If someone helps the residents cut the cards into circles or other small shapes, the same technique could be applied, but the ornament would be smaller. This activity could be the entire craft experience, or the cards could have been embellished, using glitter, tinsel, or yarn, prior to creating the ornament.

In addition to creating ornaments from old Christmas cards, nursing home residents might enjoy creating a collage to be hung in the lobby or at the nurse's station. Someone could help them cut out shapes of the design of the card, or the words or phrase of the holiday greeting. A poster board could be provided and residents could have some fun by gluing different shapes, words or phrases, or even whole card fronts to the poster board. Once the collage has been created, nursing home residents could once again embellish the project with different types of trim, buttons, yarn, or glitter. This particular craft idea might encompass several crafting sessions over the course of two or three days.

Nursing home residents often feel left out of family holiday celebrations because of their physical disabilities, and crafting may help to alleviate some of the loneliness that is often feltduring the holidays. Recycled Christmas cards can provide the materials for holiday crafting fun for nursing home residents.

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