Environmentally Friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas

Now that Christmas is almost upon us, here are some environmentally friendly gift wrapping ideas.

1. Design your own gift-wrap by using a paper grocery or department store bags and adding decorations such as drawings, stamped patterns, or pictures cut from magazines.  Let the kids do the designing.  It will keep them busy on stormy days.


2. Spruce up brown paper wrapping with pretty bows, which can be saved and used for many years.

3. Purchase sturdier gift bags (or save the ones that you receive) that can be used again for another present.

4. For large, hard to wrap gifts, just add a large fancy bow.

5. Or hide the large, unwieldy gift somewhere in the house or yard, and give the person a card with a clue, or a series of clue cards, to lead them to the present.

6. Save those gift boxes and use them again.  Many gift boxes fold down and take little room to store in a closet or cabinet.

7. Start a tradition of Christmas stockings for each person.  Little gifts can be put in the stocking without being wrapped.  The stockings can be used year after year.

8. Some gifts come in decorated gift boxes.  Just add a bow and a gift tag, and the present is ready to be displayed.


9. Wrap gifts in the funny pages or old posters 


10. Fill reusable grocery totes with your gifts. There are now many Christmas themed totes available.  All you need to make it a gift bag is a bow and gift tag.  It can then be used by the recipient for grocery shopping.

11. If you do use storebought wrapping paper, buy the kind with recycled content (the more postconsumer, the better).

Submitted by Jennifer Jones, World Bird Sanctuary Volunteer