Wrapping presents sustainably & cheaply 🎁

MSE_Laura_F

MSE Rhiannon's blog gives some ideas about wrapping presents for Christmas (or any other special occasion):

Wrapping presents sustainably - how to reuse or recycle paper and fabric to save money and help the environment

It includes:

• Top tips on how to reuse wrapping paper
• When is wrapping 'paper' not recyclable?
  
• The Japanese art of furoshiki cloth wrapping
  

Got green and/or MoneySaving wrapping tips of your own? Please let us know.

Brie

Simple thing is to make cloth bags with a drawstring.  Nice and easy and will last for years.  

Or use something that isn't wrapping paper.....my family gave up buying paper for presents decades back.  We all had newspapers then so the trick was to use the coloured comics from the weekend papers.  If you didn't have those then just use the regular newspaper and either draw pictures on it or position choice headlines to comic effect.  The other biggie was reusing wallpaper....we moved into a house and the previous owner had done the front hall in white and red flock wallpaper - you know, the velvety stuff, probably not seen since the mid 70s.  (hopefully) One side of the hall was huge red and white stripes and the other red roses on a white background.  Mom was a decorator more in the Laura Ashley line so had us carefully strip this boisterous stuff off the walls.  It was rolled up and put in the loft and would come out every year to wrap large items until it was finally all used up.  Not necessarily a prime environmentally friendly item but at least it all got a second use.

in_my_wellies

I have several old road maps which are way out of date especially as most people use sat nav. I use pages for wrapping presents - colourful and interesting.

Alnat1

Gift bags can be reused many, many times, all you need to do is make a new label to tie on.

Most of my friends and family now do this with no worry of who it was from originally. Bags might come back around a few times, it makes me smile when they do. A bit of tissue paper (recycled of course!) scrunched up to cover the gifts, job done.

Mnoee

I bought a 12 pack of cloth wine bags online a few years ago - they were and still are about £1 each, so similar price point to the paper bags - you just need to 'invest' in a few to make it worth postage costs as I've never seen them in shops. I went for generic red, so Christmassy enough for this time of year but absolutely fine for other occasions. 

I find they're hardier and easier to store than paper/cardboard gift bags - I have cats and left alone with the paper kind, they don't last long. Not had any gifted back to me yet, but it's only a matter of time.

I'm quite tempted to try cloth wrapping next year, for gifts that are staying within our house, at least. Fingers crossed I can pick up some suitably Christmassy fabric dirt cheap once the big day has been and gone.