Credit Card Fun!

Any old lampshade can be revitalized by decorating it with strips of credit cards.

You’ll need:

• old lampshade
• sharp scissors
• hot glue gun and glue
• however many credit cards you have

If you don’t have an old lampshade, go to a garage sale to find one. Remember that you can bargain (or even beg) at garage sales to slash the cost a large amount, depending how little money you have.

Cut the credit cards into narrow strips. You will want to cut them as narrowly as possible, so that you have lots of strips to work with.

Glue the strips onto the surface of the lampshade. If the lampshade is see-through, you can glue them onto the inside; otherwise, you should glue them onto the outside. This is the fun part, because you can use your creativity to make all sorts of patterns.

A credit card lampshade is a great tool for reminding you of your long-gone credit card days. Every time you turn on the lamp, you cannot help it but see your cut-up credit cards. If it drives you crazy, well, at least it’s better than continuing to rack up debt.

A pretty credit card lampshade can also remind you and your guests not to waste electricity, because it’s expensive.

A credit curtain is a curtain made entirely of the credit cards that were once your source of pleasure and enjoyment.

You’ll need:

• As many credit cards as possible
• Wire hangers
• Pliers
• Strong wire cutters
• A drill

For this project, it helps if you have a large family, and if all of your family members are giving up their credit cards at the same time. A credit curtain requires many more credit cards than you alone probably have.

Unfortunately, if all of your family members are in a position where they need to give up their credit cards, that is a bad sign. It probably means that you have no one else to turn to if you need money.

Begin by drilling four holes into each credit card, as close to the corners as possible. It doesn’t make a difference which drill bit you use, because you no longer care about your credit cards anyway.

Snip off a two- or three-inch piece of wire with your strong wire cutters. If you are having trouble, it means that you haven’t been eating enough lately due to overwhelming debt, so try and find someone who can help you with cutting the wire and who can cook a nice, homecooked meal for you every now and then.

Using pliers, bend the wire so that it almost forms a ring. Hook the ring through the holes of two credit cards, and then close the ring completely with the pliers.

Continue hooking together credit cards with rings until you are satisfied with the size of your curtain.

Once your curtain is complete, you can use it to hide from debt collectors when they come knocking on your door. Your curtain will be exteremely valuable to you for this purpose.

Creditwiches are sandwiches that contain credit cards instead of cheese or deli meats.

Why on earth would you do such a thing? Because the best way to guarantee that you’ll never see something again is to eat it. It’s a well-known trick that has been used for centuries.

You’ll need:

• 1 sub sandwich roll
• cheese (optional)
• any sliced deli meat, e.g. bologna since it’s cheap (optional)
• lettuce
• the credit cards that you wish never to see again

Make an ordinary sub sandwich, without the credit cards. Go ahead and use up all the normal ingredients.

Then carefully insert the credit cards into the very center of the sandwich, so that they are as unnoticeable as possible.

Finally, eat the entire creditwich. It may be difficult to bite the credit cards, so use a knife if it helps. It also may be difficult to swallow the bits of credit card even after you have bitten them. Debt is like that because you can’t get rid of it that easily. Unfortunately, you can’t just swallow your debt and forget about it.

It’s easy to make combs out of credit cards, though they tend to be scratchy and painful just like debt.

You’ll need:

• a credit card
• an extra sharp pair of scissors
• sandpaper (optional)

Cut long, narrow teeth into the credit card. Compare the teeth with those of a household comb if you are unsure of the widths.

When you are done, you may sand the edges of the teeth with sandpaper, but it is not required if you want the comb to be painful like debt. Be aware, though, that even if you sand the teeth, they may still be sharp and painful.

Debt is like that. No matter how hard you work to get rid of debt, it still is sharp and painful. Having large amounts of debt closes off much of the world for you, unfortunately.

Credit cards can be used as novelty butter knives.

You will need:

• X-Acto knife, with a sharp blade
• bread
• butter

Sharpen the bottom edge of the credit card by scraping it repeatedly with an X-Acto knife. Do this privately, so that you do not appear to be strange. When the credit card is sharp enough, it will be able to slice bread.

Using the credit card, slice the bread into thin slices. Spread butter on each slice of bread, still using the credit card.

Eat and repeat.

If you are in a lot of debt, this is a good exercise for you because bread and butter are quite inexpensive in comparison with nutritious foods. Eating bread and butter for days is how I survived my worst days of debt. Also, this exercise makes for cheap entertainment.

You can even replace the butter with sticks of “buttery-flavored spread”, which cost only $0.79 for four sticks when on sale. Trust me, I know from experience.

To make confetti, you’ll need lots and lots of old credit cards. Try collecting them in a bin at your office.

Break the credit cards into halves and then into quarters. This gives you lots of big pieces of confetti. Then invite your bankrupt and debt-burdened friends over for a credit-cardless party. Tell everyone to bring umbrellas.

Once all the guests have arrived, take your bowl of confetti up the stairs. If you live in a one-story home, then just stand on a table. Instruct everyone to open their umbrellas. If anyone does not have an umbrella, tell them to look down so that credit card fragments won’t hit them in the eyes.

Toss the confetti into the air lightly. Tell everyone that their debt is raining down on them. That will definitely make them want to leave the party, which is exactly what you want to happen if you’re in debt yourself and can’t afford to feed a house full of bankrupt partygoers.

This pretty mobile is made up of fluttering credit card butterflies!

You’ll need:

• 1 credit card per butterfly
• 1 springy spring per butterfly (find them in clicker-style ballpoint pens)
• string
• twigs
• hot glue gun and glue

Cut each credit card in half. With a strong pair of scissors, cut each credit card half into a butterfly wing. That gives you a pair of butterfly wings per credit card.

Put hot glue on one end of a spring, and quickly attach a butterfly wing. Do the same with the other end of the spring. Then bend the spring until it looks like a fluttering butterfly. You might have to distort the spring a little.

Keep doing this until you have several credit card butterflies.

Now make a mobile out of the credit card butterflies, using twigs and string. Look online for examples to copy, because I’m not going to teach you how to make a mobile here. By the way, did you know that Alexander Calder invented the mobile in 1931?

I was once a student with many credit cards. I collected them, one by one, filling out credit card applications here and there. Because I was young and without credit, most of my applications got accepted.

Then I left college, and now I have no more credit cards. I have debit cards, because those are safe and have no line of credit. And I have no credit card bills.

Now my only problem is that I am swimming in piles of useless credit cards. My house is filled to the brim with them! So I have to come up with good things to do with the silly little pieces of now-useless plastic.

In honor of my dilemma, I now begin this blog, “Credit Card Fun!” Because, well, cutting up your credit cards and turning them into butterflies is one of the best ways to avoid credit card debt.