Christmas Gift Wrapping

No Waste Gift Wrapping Ideas

With Christmas rapidly approaching, many of you are in the throes of furiously wrapping those gifts that you've purchased for friends and loved ones.  We thought this would be an appropriate time to publish some innovative gift wrapping ideas, submitted by volunteer Jennifer Jones, that are both attractive and environmentally friendly.  Between now and Christmas we will be publishing several more of Jennifer's environmental Christmas tips.

·       Wrap the gift in a drawstring bag and use an inexpensive luggage tag for the gift tag.

·       Decorate oversized gifts with just a bow that can be used again.

·       Put toy animals in a cowboy hat and wrap a cowboy scarf around it.

·       Use a jewelry box for some flea market 'jewels.'

·       Use a knit hat to wrap a small gift. Close the hat with a barrette or a decorative hat pin.

·       Games or toys for a child can go in a new backpack designed pillow case.

·       For a person who is handy, wrap a gift in a tool box.

·       Put blouses and other gifts in decorative hat boxes and tie with a hair ribbon.

·       For the sewing enthusiast, wrap a gift in a fabric remnant and tie it with a piece of lace or ribbon.

·       Any kitchen gift can be wrapped in a colorful dish towel. Kitchen utensils can pop out of an oven mitt.

·       Place home-baked cookies in a reusable tin box, a kitchen container, or a decorated oatmeal box.

·       Use a colorful tablecloth to wrap dishes or dining room gifts.

·       For a reader, wrap a book in a reusable canvas shopping sack.

·       Wrap tools for a gardener in the pocket of an apron, planter, or bucket.

·       Hang earrings, bracelets, or necklaces right on the Christmas tree, or put them inside or around an open ornament.

·       Search the flea market, garage sales, and thrift stores for interesting old boxes that can be used as decorative packages.

·       Search the attic for old family photos and mementos and give them to your favorite relative wrapped in grandma's old hat and a lace curtain.

·       Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift shops often have good prices on leftover holiday wrapping paper.

·       Purchase gift bags from your local dollar stores and reuse them each year.

·       Reuse last year’s Christmas cards by saving the front page, trimming the edges to roughly approximate the image, and use a hole punch in the upper corner to make a hole for a ribbon to tie the tag to your pacikage.  Voila!...a free recycled gift tag.

·       Used, but attractive, gift baskets are often offered at local thrift shops.

·       Christmas-theme fabric, with Velcro strips attached, can become reusable holiday wrap
If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.

    Submitted by Jennifer Jones, World Bird Sanctuary Volunteer