Christmas is drawing near; many Christmas cards are available on the market. During the first 70 years of the 19th century it was common for Christmas and other greeting cards to be recycled by women's service organizations that collected them and removed the pictures, to be pasted into scrap books for the entertainment of children in hospitals, orphanages, kindergartens and missions. With children's picture books becoming cheaper and more readily available, this form of scrap-booking has almost disappeared. Early Englishjewelry cards rarely showed winter or religious themes, instead favoring flowers, fairies and other fanciful designs that reminded the recipient of the approach of spring.

Recent concern over the environmental impact of printing, mailing and delivering cards has fueled an increase in e-cards. The U.K. conservation charity Woodland Trust runs an annual campaign to collect and recyclejewelry cards to raise awareness of recycling and collect donations from corporate sponsors and supporters. All recycled cards help raise money to plant more trees. In the 12 years that the Woodland Trust Christmas Card Recycling Scheme has been running, many families and individuals have chosen to make their own Christmas cards, either in response to monetary necessity, as an artistic endeavor, or in order to avoid the commercialism associated with Christmas cards.

With a higher preference of handmade gifts during the 19th century over purchased or commercial items, homemade cards carried high sentimental value as gifts alone. Many families make the creation ofjewelry cards a family endeavor and part of the seasonal festivity, along with stirring the Christmas cake and decorating the tree. Over the years such cards have been produced in every type of paint and crayon, in collage and in simple printing techniques such as potato-cuts. A revival of interest in paper crafts, particularly scrapbooking, has raised the status of the homemade card and made available an array of tools for stamping, punching and cutting.