Easy and Quick DIY Christmas Card Door Display

December 07, 2019

Easy and inexpensive holiday card display for an interior door.

This DIY Christmas card holder is a fun way to display a ton of cards! It's a great addition on a entryway door or the back of your front door.

This is the super quick, easy way I display our holiday cards. I started doing it a couple years ago and have been meaning to blog about it every year since.

I love this little holiday DIY project because it showcases our cards but also makes a cute Christmas decoration.

All you need is some ribbon and a door. Told you, easy!

OK, there are a few other minor things, but really, it’s simple.

I change up my ribbon each season, but you could use the same year to year too:
candy cane Christmas ribbon

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I bought this candy cane stripe years ago and love it. Here's a similar ribbon if you like this look!

You'll need to cut two strips of ribbon -- a longer one to run vertically and a shorter one to go across the door.

I just wrap it around the back of the door and secured it inside with upholstery tacks (cause that’s what I had handy):
easy door holiday card display

Yes, it will put a small hole in your door, and no, no one will ever notice it. I just use the same holes year to year.


Just wrap the ribbon around top to bottom and across the door. Then you’ll need something to hold the cards on the ribbon.

I found these little mini clothespins years ago at a craft store but you can find them here online:
mini clothespins for holiday cards

They aren’t super strong but hold a card just fine. 

You could also use small binder clips to hold the cards!

This DIY Christmas card display takes about five minutes to set up and no time at all to add new ones as the cards come in: 

fun door Christmas card holder

And I love having it out in the open where everyone can admire the pretty cards: 
DIY ribbon Christmas card holder

Last year I put a big puffy bow in the middle to make it look more present-like, but I lost a lot of card space with that bow, so it’s gone this year. :)

Here are a few ways you can change up this DIY Christmas card holder idea: 
  • Hang the ribbon on your kitchen cabinet instead of a door. 
  • Use garland or greenery instead of ribbon -- the clips will still work! 
  • Add the ribbon or garland to a large memo board or big chalkboard instead. 

By the way, I’m pretty darn proud of myself. That closet is still organized!:
organized coat closet

I added a few more cards today that we received over the weekend and there’s still plenty of room for more:

Christmas ribbon and cards door

You know, for those who send their cards out at the last possible minute. Like…uhh, someone I know. Someone who is typing this.

How do you display your cards during the holiday season? Do you send them out every year? Are yours out already?

It’s become one of those things that I’ve decided to be OK with not doing if I don’t have time. Most years something's got to give! :)


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Comments

  1. Love the door idea! Lots of space that way. I have made a few "Merry Mail" signs that hang up with strips of fabric hanging down for the cards and that works well and is fun to make! I blogged about it here:
    http://www.makinitinmemphis.com/2012/12/craft-this-merry-mail-christmas-wreath.html

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  2. I love the idea of hanging up the cards. Question: does anyone save their friends' cards from year to year? I feel bad throwing them away but they pile up so quickly and become clutter-some.

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    Replies
    1. I started saving only the ones with family photos on them. If there are no pictures of people on the cards I toss them after Christmas.
      With the ones I do keep, I put them in a cute Christmas box and store them with my Christmas decor and just set the box out the next year. My kids like seeing how much loved ones change from year to year looking back at old cards.

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    2. YES! Save those photo cards - god knows a lot of time gets spent making them... don't get me started. Buy a standard (large blank page) photo album and as soon as the season is over, put all the cards in the pages with whatever year at the top/beginning. If you have a label maker or printer, maybe even print the year on photo paper in color. It is ultimate christmas organizing, and I just paste a pretty christmas tree card on the front of the album. So fun to look through the years when I get it out at christmastime!

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  3. Heyyyy! Another Christmas card door post! I did something similar here--


    http://www.iheartmygluegun.com/2012/12/christmas-card-door.html

    I love yours! :)

    www.iheartmygluegun.com

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  4. Brandi I do! I make them into gift tags -- here's a post about it: http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2008/12/cheap-gift-tags-free.html

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  5. We have doors with louvers on them so just just slip Christmas cards into the slats. For the flat cards that don't have a fold, I display them on a free standing card display thing I got at a yard sale. It gets crowded quick though so I usually end up with some on the fridge too.

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  6. Love your card display but your chalkboard wall with the frames seriously made my heart skip a beat!
    Merry Christmas!!

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  7. This is exactly what I needed! And I keep my Christmas cards to make an ABC book for my daughter. :)

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  8. Love it! And I'm so proud to see our card hanging there. ;o)

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  9. I, too, keep my old cards from year to year. I saw your post about using them for present tags and that's what I'm going to finally do with them, Sarah. Great idea! My grandma used to make the old cards into baskets by cutting each card into an urn shape, then "sewing" each urn together with yarn. A card circle completes the bottom. You end up with what looks like a rose bowl made from cards. She would fill them with little bouquets of salt dough flowers she would make. She was a very crafty lady :).

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  10. Just love it . I am breaking out the RIBBON NOW sister !!!!!!! Awesome ..Thanks for sharing this........... I will show the readers the tip on my FB showing what you posted. I just love this
    Sherry @ The Rusty Pearl

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  11. How fun!! I love displaying Christmas cards! They are my favorite :) I was so giddy the first time my husband and I received Christmas cards after we were married - it made me feel that we were really married then, haha

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  12. What a wonderful idea Sarah! I'm bookmarking this for next year.

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  13. Can I be so bold as to steal this cute idea? I recently bought these cute little clothespins.

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  14. This is such a great idea! I hung my cards from ribbon this year, but I love the way yours looks on the door!

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  15. I send out cards maybe every other year, and I don't put the usual perfectly primped family photo on them each time. I think its easy to get caught up in trying to have the best trendiest cards and you kinda forget the reason for sending them which is to tell others you're thinking about them. I think its ok to skip years, and a plain card with a heartfelt handwritten message is best in my opinion :)

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  16. I love that ribbon! I put my cards along the chair rail in my dining room. It ends up being a nice border and doesn't look cluttered like a card holder I had before.

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  17. Sarah, I did this, too. I used command hooks instead of nails and tied my ribbon to those. That way, no holes!

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  18. So cute! I always love hearing how others display their cards. Right now I keep all mine in a Santa sleigh in the front entry, but next year I am thinking about going more display like. Perhaps this way now...

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  19. Hey Sarah. I have to tell you, I read many DIY blogs and yours is the only one that I have read who has been so open and humble with their feelings the past few days. I have two young boys and the past few days have effected me greatly. It's comforting to read I'm not the only one.

    Now I do have a random home question....where did you get your light over the kitchen table and is it black or oil rubbed bronze?

    From one Sarah to another....thank you.

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  20. I have a little metal wreath form that clips the cards in, but your way is better because you can see them all!

    Clever.

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  21. Cute and easy idea! we take a family pic at Thanksgiving and for the last few years, I just get what I get - no matchy matchy outfits and no fancy backdrops. All casual and on the fly. I display cards on a card stand made by Firstborn in Cub Scouts years ago - it's wonky but wonderful. I try to send out pics the week before Christmas - I did good this year!

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  22. Cute idea! Don't despair about not getting cards out before Christmas. For the past several years we send ours out after Christmas on purpose. We write a long letter and call it our "Year End Review". That way people can read about what our year was like, all the way through the holidays!

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  23. Great idea. I may have to do that next year. This year I hung ribbon from the railing/balcony that overlooks the living room and used clothespins to hang up our cards there.

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  24. Sadly, as postage continued to rise over the past years, I finally gave up sending cards. Still have some guilt about it, but budget is budget. Now I create a card in Photoshop and e-mail it. For now, that will do!

    I think the only reason for the halfwall between kitchen & didning room is to display Christmas cards!

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  25. Sorry...that would be "dining" room. I love that chalkboard wall and I also had a question based on your photo with both door and chalkboard walls. Have you considered some type of white board and batten treatment on the door wall floor to ceiling to balance out the lower height of the door?

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  26. Cute idea! I do Christmas cards because my husband makes me. Since I have to do it, I get it done early so I can be done with it!

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  27. How do you keep the fridge sooooo shinny?

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  28. we hung our cards on a ribbon on our door, too! I saw the idea on pinterest, but it was on kitchen cabinets instead. I didn't want to clutter up the cabinets, so the door was a better choice for us.

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  29. I love this idea, so cute!

    On a side note, your closet still looks fantabulous! :) However, the CDO in me (OCD...but with the letters in the correct order, haha) wants to come over and wrap your vacuum cord up correctly, that would drive me bonkers! ;)

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  30. Thank you for this idea! I used little round Velcro tabs to hold the ribbon in place. Merry Christmas! Chris

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  31. This is cute! And a great way to reuse and display your cards too! 💕✨

    Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
    http://charmainenyw.com

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  32. I have done something similar for years. I use command hooks to drape ribbon around a door frame (works best if it is an open doorway, not one with an actual door on it) and then used closed pins to hang the cards. That way you have cards running all around the frame. For the last few years I have done it around the entry to the kitchen.

    I have picked up cute/festival clothes pins at the dollar spot in target. Haven't seem them this year but they have had them for the last several. Clothes pin with a tree or reindeer on it adds a nice touch. Typically they have 4 for a dollar

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  33. You can also use removable double sided tape. I use command strips well beyond their intended use.

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    Replies
    1. I love those things! They didn't hold the ribbon for me, but maybe they would with other ribbon.

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  34. I was born in the 50’s so yes I’m a baby boomer. People used to send cards like crazy...you could get 50 or more. Now people barely send cards due to laziness and the lack of the tradition carrying on. I got a sum total of 5 last year and 3 were from my sisters. It really is sad because I love beautiful cards. I do not like getting photo cards...they don’t look like Christmas to me. Times they are a changing.

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