Card Sharp

My 'envelope punch board' has been working overtime recently, as I've been making boxes and packets for some of my gifts. But you always start with a square of card- so often I have narrow strips left over.
I kept putting these to one side - and then unexpectedly found a use for them last Thursday, when my fried Pam came round.
She works for CAP [Christians Against Poverty] and was preparing for a Christmas Meal which they were hosting for all their clients. 
"Oh, I've just remembered, I need an Icebreaker 'Table Game'" she said. I offered to help - it had to be something easy - for mixed ages and abilities. I suggested one I'd done with children - "What am I?"  You have a set of cards, with animals/birds/sea creatures on them. Each person has a card - and then the other people at the table ask questions [with yes/no answers] and try and guess what creature is on the card.

I began by quickly making a list of 50 creatures- farm animals [pig, cow...] minibeasts [ladybird, butterfly..] British wildlife [fox, hedgehog..] Jungle creatures [monkey, snake...] Sea creatures [shark, crab..] You get the idea. Then I cut up my strips into regular sized cards, and wrote a name on each. I made some little explanation slips, and bundled the cards into groups of 6. I made a little box using the punch board. The whole exercise took less than 45 minutes.

I was on a roll by then. I took some of my other strips, and using my triple-tag-punch, and a Fiskars corner snowflake punch, I made a whole box of gift tags, using up more of my strip trimmings.

I find it so incredibly satisfying to create something from the resources I already have, don't you?