What to do with Wedding Cards?

Confession time, y'all. I am an enormous pack rat. I am pretty much a borderline hoarder at this point. Not the empty trash piled to your ceiling type; the stuff type. My family makes so much fun of me because of it. I have never really liked to throw anything away, but it has only gotten worse as I've gotten older. I am the most sentimental person you will ever meet, I guarantee it. A lot of it has to do with my grandmother - she kept everything and I am following right in her footsteps - especially anything that has to do with my grandparents since all of them have passed away. I am so afraid of getting rid of something I'll want later or need! Now that I'm a teacher (well, not literally at the moment) it's even worse! I'm always thinking to myself, will I be able to use that in Social Studies? A Science lab? You'd be amazed, right EDMS friends?

I've got a giant chest at my parents house full of middle school and high school memorabilia - cheerleading tags, notes, newspaper clippings, etc - that I can't stand to part with. I've also got a giant hat box full of anything and everything Chris and I could accumulate during our relationship  - that's 8 years worth of notes, ticket stubs, receipts, etc. I think it might have something to do with my love of history. I love learning about anything - seriously - but especially people and how they change over time. I love looking back at my grandparents dating photos, or hearing stories about my dad's childhood growing up on Black Rock. I can't wait to share my life with my children, and what better way to do that than though showing them things that meant so much to me at one point in my life? Do I need those BAR slips from my friends in Middle School? No way. But each one of them has a story attached to them that I can't wait to share. My version of "How I met your mother," I suppose...

Anyway, my hoarding tendencies only got a thousand times worse when we got engaged! I have saved every. little. thing. that has had anything to do with the engagement and wedding. I've got yet another box full of those things. I keep getting the box out to look through it and decided I wanted to do something more fun with some of my things.

If you're on Pinterest you've probably seen these things floating around for a while now and I finally decided to make my own. My first project was this "Wedding Card Book." This is all the cards we got at the showers and at the wedding. It's a pretty thick book so I had to use two large binder clips. I found the clips at Wal-Mart for less than $2.00 a pack in the office supplies section. The pack included four large clips and four small clips. All I did was use the hole punch and try to keep in centered so the cards were even. I stacked my cards from largest (in the back) to smallest (in the front) and used a pretty card for the front. Thanks to my sweet, sweet, friend Sarah Richards for this beautiful card! 

After that one I decided to make a few other ones! This next one is specifically our wedding paraphernalia. It includes: 

Wedding Invitation 

Guest accommodation card

Response card

Our three wedding shower invites

Engagement Party Invite

Rehearsal Dinner Invite

Guest responses (RSVP's, both yes and no)

This one is probably my favorite! If you registered at Gift Garden or Davis Brothers you know what these are - the cards on all the presents that say what the gift is and who it is from. Most of them have hand written notes from the giver. I kept every single one! I will cherish these forever! I love reading the sweet thoughts from the ladies at our church in their beautiful handwriting and the funny ones from my friends! This way I will never forget who gave me what gift. I put a tag from our gift bags at the wedding on the front for the "cover."

Lastly, I decided to put my post card collection on a small ring. I don't have many but my collection is growing. I decided to start this when I went to Italy last summer and it's so fun to look back at where I've been.

If you go anywhere interesting, send me a post card please!

I made one other one for miscellaneous cards but didn't take a picture of it. I only used the ones I had here in Dalton because the rest are in a box (shocker) at home. 

What do you think? Are cards worth keeping? I vote YES!