In a seven-year tradition, After Hours Creative’s 1996 holiday invitation encouraged recipients to create something unique to celebrate the holidays — in this case, ornaments made from recycled printing plates.

Working with a local printer, we collected old printing plates and had them trimmed to size. They were then silkscreened with instructions and patterns that showed people how to transform the scraps into beautiful holiday ornaments. The kits were completed with cotton garden gloves (of recycled cotton), scissors, Band-Aids (for those who didn’t wear the gloves) and holiday candy. All was contained in recycled cardboard boxes with reclaimed wood chips as packing protection.