The holidays are here again, and with the biggest gift-giving holiday just around the corner, now is the time to start thinking about wrapping up those gifts you’ve searched high and low for all year (or at least in the last week). At Natural Home & Garden, we’re all about reducing the ridiculous amounts of waste that the holidays create. The giftwrap industry brings in $2.6 billion annually–all of it for products that are admired for a few seconds before being shredded to bits and tossed aside. Wrapping gifts with materials from around your house is always a good way to reduce the amount of waste your gift giving creates, but that’s always easier said than done. So what to do if you’re not a crafty person? For those of you (myself included!) who need visual inspiration to realize the many ways to wrap gifts in style (and sustainability), check out these gholiday gift-wrapping ideas that reuse materials from around your house.
Plain brown kraft paper is the basic starting point of many homemade wrapping projects. If you don’t have kraft paper around your house, try using brown paper shopping bags or even manila envelopes. Tie a little baker’s or butcher’s twine around the gift, and voila! A basic, DIY wrapped gift. From this starting point, you can get a little fancier. Adorn your gift with leftover ribbons, buttons, doilies, newsprint and other objects. You can even make bows out of old magazine pages or create a miniature wreath from evergreen boughs! Try sketching designs on your kraft-wrapped gift using a white pen or nontoxic paint. Don’t limit yourself to kraft paper though! Use any scrap paper material, including newspaper, sheet music, maps and so on, as well as fabric leftover from sewing projects or burlap bags.
Alternative Gift-Wrapping Ideas
What gift-wrapping ideas do you have? Share them in the comments section!