holiday classics: eco-friendly gift-wrapping tips!
Once you've chosen thoughtful, eco-friendly gifts for your loved ones, the challenge is to wrap them without contributing to the extra 5 million tons of garbage generated in the US each holiday season (that's about 25% more garbage than we generate at other times of year!). Girlie Girl Army has a couple of great ideas for cutting down on waste:
- Wrap gifts in old newspaper or thrift store fabrics and ribbons
- Use brown paper bags (although hopefully you don't have a tone of these, because you are using your resusable canvas bags), or get creative with magazines and even junk mail (hopefully you have stopped your junk mail. If you haven't, go here to learn how).
For any gifts we give, we save ribbon, boxes and paper all year round from gifts we have received. And we just use all of that to make our gift wrap.
What other gift-wrapping ideas do you have?
My Kind Gift Guide
Adopt a Christmas Tree
Simple Ways to Reduce Waste
The Battle Against Plastic Bags Continues
22 comments
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Great idea, if gifts are wrapped carefully (light on the tape) with fancy paper, the paper can be recovered and re-used for gift rapping again and again. Ribbon (more durable) is obviously far easier to recover and reuse, but if you put a little effort into wrapping with less tape, and asking your gift opener to open gently, that paper can be reused whether it is newspaper or fancy foil paper or silk or anything else!
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LOVE IT!! You can also make storage bags from magazines, like my sister did one year, or a gift bag.
I haven't spent a penny n wrapping paper this year because I'm re-using what I can of old wrapping paper and tissue paper, ribbons and things from my craft box! For my Mum's birthday today, I used tissue paper and decorated it with re-used yellow tissue paper, scrunched up to make flowers! She loved it and looked very pretty. I even made her a couple of gifts, like a bookmark and some soy candles.
It's wonderful being so ethical! X
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Because I give gifts to people in person and don't have to post any, I use fabric bags and wrappings, and I get them back and use them again the following year.
A few years ago I bought a few metres of Christmas printed fabrics when on special, and I cut some of it into squares and edged them and some I made into bags with a piece of ribbon sewed into the side seam (so you gather the top together then tie the ribbon around).... and I bought a selection of ribbons (and keep ribbons I get through the year) So I use the squares like wrapping paper, and other things I put in the bags. If I get any nice boxes or giftbags through the year I save those also.
While it did then involve buying the fabric (rather than reusing something I already had - though you could look for red/green sheets or tablecloths secondhand), for the last 4 years now I've not bought any paper wrap, and I won't have to ever again. The gifts all look colourful and pretty just like paper, and then when the person opens their gift they give me back the fabric and ribbon and I use it again the next year.
I also made reusable tags, since we tend to always give to the same people, I printed a sheet of tags with names on and laminated them, so they could be reused year after year. Though I have now splurged and bought a paper punch that makes gifttag shapes, and I will use that to punch out pretty pieces of our old Christmas cards (and recycle the remains), and I'll keep some for using myself and will make some for giving to my family to use on their gifts.
I've also wrapped some presents in teatowels with ribbon.
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I use reusable canvas bags. It acts as another present that they will hopefully use in the future instead of plastic or paper.
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I like to buy pretty reusable bags and wrap gifts with them - it's an extra part of the gift and encourages people who may not already have reusable bags to start!
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I use canvas grocery bags to wrap many of my gifts. They get two gifts in one and I can encourage my friends to use reusable bags!
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I've used the colored comic section from the Sunday newspaper for wrapping gifts, gives it a fun look. And then used scrap yarn for tying it all up or raffia (which is biodegradable). If you have a Chinese market nearby, buy their newspaper to use for wrapping. Another idea is to use plain brown paper that you've decorated with a potato stamp, this is a fun project for kids, too. Make star shapes or just big circles for polka dots...also, trees, birds or any sort of graphic design that's easy to carve.
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My brother uses plain brown craft paper to wrap all of his gifts. He usually adds an ornament or a bow for a festive touch. His gifts always look so beautiful and elegant. The brown paper has no dye on it, so it's much greener, and the ornaments and bows can easily be recycled or re-purposed items.
I hate wrapping gifts, and reuse gift bags whenever possible!
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Wow so much rubbish? You us people are amazingly consumist aren't you? Here in my country reusing ribbons it's always been a classic, but consumist capitalist culture is swallowing us so fast! Hopefully all this green way of living won't let us get totally spoiled by it! As people wouldn't have so much money to spend, everything was always reused. I loved all that, i'm really into recycling everything, but lately i've been feeling uncomfortable among other people, because here that has a stigma: you are poor, you can't afford to buy new stuff. As i love all green and cheap and recycled, i always find good statements about my way of living, and as matter of fact i believe that if you are creative everything you use can be the best, but i know most people stopped keeping the ribbons and papers from gifts they received because it makes you look poor or something...
I still wrap my presents in newspaper because i love how it looks and plus it's cheap, i just have it around, though i don't buy the newspaper because here at work we buy only one and as we get here in the morning, we all get the news from only one newspaper, and i save al the sheets for presents, to dry up a mess if i don't have fabric around or even to use as weatherstrippings on windows and doors in winter!
I love all the fabric ideas thrown here by other readers, i think it's amazing to wrap gifts up in another gift! Yay! -
Last year I wrapped ALL my gifts from deflated mylar balloons from my office Mylar are the ones with a metalic sheen. (We've finally banned ordering new ones. But in the meantime, there is a seeming never ending supply!) Just separate the 2 sides by cutting or ripping. You may have to tape a few together for larger gifts.
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I wrap gifts in home knitted dish cloths or towels or some thing made by me and usable. An apron, slippers, large cloth napkins, table cloths, anything the individual receiving the gift would like and use. Crochet dish scrubbers make wonderful bows after tying the corners of wrapping together.
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I wrap mine in tea towels, which then becomes a bonus gift. Tea towels are something everyone needs, but no one wants to receive them as a gift on their own.
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I totally understand Mark. I have 5 year old triplets and a 7 year old, so I have a LOT of wrapping paper!! Also, I cant bear to throw out their creations, so its a double win for me!
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I love Kathryn's idea of using kids art as wrapping paper. A great way to kindly dispose of the vast amount of artwork my 4 year old generates. It's currently accumulating in the basement!
Mark Osborne - www.VeganHealthAndFitness.com
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I use my kids paintings from kinder and school that dont get put on the wall. They love that their creations are pretty enought to be wrapping paper and the presen looks gorgeous. Like abstract art.
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I love gifts wrapped in brown paper bags with ribbons and pine branches / pinecones!
Speaking of gifts, I am hosting two great vegan giveaways on my site right now. Cruise on over and enter to win...
Conscious Box (winner announced tomorrow) http://veggiegrettie.com/2011/12/02/conscious-box-giveaway/
PlantFusion Vegan Protein Powder gift bag (winner announced next Friday) http://veggiegrettie.com/2011/12/08/product-review-and-giveaway-plantfusion/
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I use tissue paper that was wrapped around fragile items I've recently bought, then used yarn for ribbon!
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I came up with a new one recently...I had an old out-of-date road atlas and the maps make excellent and very cool/funky looking wrapping paper! A few people remarked, "Cool paper! Where'd you buy it?"
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I just wrote an article on that on my blog! http://jessicasteinberg.blogspot.com/2011/11/so-you-wanna-be-wrap-superstar.html
There's a company called Ella Wrap that makes gift wrap out of fabric. I received it in the mail last week and it's super cute!
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I also reuse any wrap/bags/etc. I receive throughout the year when giving other gifts. Or I give the gift in a reusaable shopping bag or other functional bag (like a lunch bag, etc) to be a part of the entire gift. I wrap in old fabric scraps and use ribbons too.
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