And wrapping presents for family.
I adore beautifully wrapped presents and may have a few rigidities around wrapping presents PERFECTLY. That said, the thought of spending money on something that people are going to rip into pieces for it to be at worse, thrown in the landfill, or at best recycled, kills me. As a result, we haven't bought much wrapping paper in years.
Nevertheless, our presents continue to look smashing if I do humbly say so myself.
How? Through the joys of newspaper!
A local Haligonian paper, The Coast, always has the most interesting graphics and front page "art" work, which is especially festive during December. All I needed to do was pick up a free paper two Thursdays in a row, read them as I would anyway, and spend some time searching for a "wrappable" section.
Seriously, this can get really fun, especially since for certain friends I wrapped their presents using the "Savage Love" (warning, explicitly sexual articles post-link!) section of the newspaper (hah!).
Smaller graphics can be cut out for pretty gift tags. A bit of repurposed ribbon or string and you're good to go!
Now, for my brother's "step-son" who's 3 years old, I caved and purchased a small bit of wrapping paper made from recycled paper. I pick my battles :)
Wrapping our Yulemas gifts with artfully selected newspaper can be fun, beautiful and would help save our landfills from tons of plastic-y, non-recycled wrapping paper. Give it a try!
article and photographs copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com
Your brother's Step son will be thrilled ;-) Wrapping paper never truly goes to waste on a 3 year old! :)
ReplyDeleteYour presents look terrific :-)
ReplyDeleteStay warm over there!
I love that this wrapping paper isn't just black and white newspaper, but it's still recycled! Fun! A few years ago I encouraged my Mum to buy some holiday fabric in December when it was on mega sale, and then she made a BUNCH of draw string bags for our family gift exchange. So we re-use those fabric bags every year and no longer have a giant bag of trash to throw away after Christmas! So awesome.
ReplyDeletethey look fab!
ReplyDeleteOh I love this! Totally gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI love this! My husband wrapped my present in catalog pages. :) And thumbs up for mentioning Savage Love--I do not exaggerate when I say that reading it during college helped me learn so much valuable info about sex and relationships.
ReplyDeletefabric is my new favorite way to wrap presents. I have many pretty cloth bags that we use over and over and for many things and then there is the the japanese art of furoshiki. I had a great book out of the library called wrapagami. My dd loves to rip open paper so I use old calendars for her. I hate that we use so much tape even if the paper is reused or recycled. With fabric, I use bandanas or small pieces from the fabric bin:)
ReplyDelete