DIY gift wrap

dannahaz

No, you're not making excuses. It would be a terrible shame to throw it away when you could reuse it very easily.

happyevs

it will come in handy 1 day keep away from landfill

catznine

You are not alone Quaser! I have saved 2 lovely boxes that gifts came in, will make lovely storage boxes for my craft bits and pieces. the ribbons and bows I keep either for wrapping up future gifts or for using in scrapbooking/cardmaking, waste not want not and craft materials are quite expensive!

Magpye

I love to recycle gift bags and ribbons - you can get a few uses out of them if you make sure whoever's unwrapping them is careful. All my family are the same and we have wee stashes of "recycled" ribbons etc - all money saving and more environmentally friendly!

mary43

It's not mean at all. I keep all stuff like that. I can always either use it myself to store things in or re-use it by putting pressies in it for someone next year. Nothing need be wasted. Paper and ribbons are brilliant for card making

Quasar

Thanks folks. I thought I was being a bit of a scrooge. I usually keep the flimsy wrapping paper if it is in perfect condition, but I've never seen ribbons like these. The box is certainly useful for storage, and so pretty looking.

I'm also very keen on recycling as much as I can, of course. The contents of the L'Occitane bag included joss sticks in a long cylindrical metal container, which will be perfect to store my watercolour sable brushes.

Bogof_Babe

My OH gave a lovely tin of shortbread to his work colleagues (he's only a casual, I think he wanted to keep in with them ) and I had to bite my tongue not to ask him to bring the tin back when it was empty. It was plain shiny gold coloured, and would have been ideal for sewing stuff etc. It's probably full of spanners now :rolleyes: .

M.E.

I save little boxes and cartons, ribbons, tubes etc and every so often they go to the local nursery school. The children enjoy making models from the treasures.

hornetgirl

When DH and I got married (15 years ago), one of our wedding presents came in a very pretty box. We reused it to put a birthday present in, then it surfaced again at Christmas. In fact it became a bit of a standing joke and did the rounds for about 12 years until it finally fell apart, but it created a fun family tradition while it lasted.

dolly_day_dream

My daughter put the most beautiful ribbon around one of her dresses to wear out for the night - she didn't know that it had been wrapped around a present the year before - she only knew that it came from Mum's stash of ribbons. Boxes, bags, ribbons - all get reused as many times as possible it used to be because I couldn't bear to throw them away but now I am obviously saving the environment.