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Free alternatives to gift wrap
Asha Dornfest of Parent Hacks | December 8th, 2008 - 7:04 PM
I didn’t do it last year, and I felt so great about it, I’m never doing it again.
I didn’t buy a shred of wrapping paper.
Now I love beautifully-wrapped gift as much as the next guy, but buying paper specifically produced to be thrown away? Between the Earth’s stretched resources and my stretched budget, there’s just no way.
Are you with me on this one? Give it a try this year. A few ideas:
Craft paper. My daughter has an easel which uses an attached roll of recycled newsprint. She draws or paints, then pulls the roll revealing new paper. But what to do with the miles of resulting art? Turn it into custom wrapping for the grandparents’ gifts. Same deal with the art projects that come home from school.
Second-hand scarves. I know someone who picks up Goodwill scarves — the more garish the better — for pennies apiece and then uses them to wrap gifts. Also: baby blankets.
Fabric scraps. Same idea for the sewers and crafters who probably have tons of old fabric sitting around. Here’s a fantastic tutorial for furoshiki, the Japanese art of wrapping gifts in cloth.
Reusable bags and baskets. There are tons of inexpensive reusable totes for sale these days. Stash a gift inside and let the recipient keep the paper-saving going by taking the tote to the grocery store. (Thanks to a resourceful Parent Hacks reader for this tip.) Another idea: wine bags. Dabbled shares her homemade version.
Pillowcases. Good for hauling gifts home, too! (From Blythe.)
The Sunday comics. A classic. Great for the kids. Another idea: inside-out brown paper bags (but I have so few of them around now that I use cloth grocery totes.)
Recycled, washed food packaging. Twitter buddy PsychMamma washes potato chip bags, turns them foil-side out, and wraps gifts with them! Dang, I never would have thought of that. But it reminds me that all sorts of things come in cool packaging that can live a second life as gift wrap.
Remnant yarn as decoration. If you’re a knitter/crocheter/weaver, you can fashion your own little gift bags. But all of us can tie bows around our gifts with leftover yarn. Also, garden twine.
Old maps. Brilliant idea from redrabbit.
Any more DIY gift wrapping ideas to share?
Love the idea! We’ve been using newspaper in my house for the last 40 years. It is a family tradition and back when the Sunday comics were 5-6 pages, the sporting green was actually green in color and the Datebook section was bright pink it was a rainbow of color under the tree.
Matt T: You must be an SF Chronicle reader! That’s the Sunday paper I grew up with!
I wish I could remember where I saw it last year, but I read a blog entry about how this one family goes out the week after Christmas and buys up discounted Christmas fabric and sews Christmas wrapping bags out of it. And they re-use them from year to year and remember some of the gifts of the past that came in the bag. Sounds like a great tradition.
Small shopping bags from the mall. We stick kiddo art, a magazine picture, or big fancy name label over the logo. Stuff with recycled tissue paper. Voila!
We also do a lot of potato stamps/drawing on the inside of paper grocery bags. They only catch is that regular scotch tape isn’t strong enough to hold it so you have to use packing tape.
Or, better yet, try wrapping without tape, like Grandma and Grandpa had to back in the day! I had a tape-free Christmas a few years ago just for kicks and it was pretty cool. In a nerdy way.
I keep all the paper packing material that comes in anything I order and have my kids color and paint it. Everyone gets an “original” artwork as their wrapping paper.
How about a holey pair of jeans or old shirt of dad’s? Also can stash cash in the pockets! The shirt can then later be used to cover up little bodies as they paint.
Also old boxes from UPS or other deliveries. Let the kids stamp, sticker, and paint on them before filling and presenting.
Another idea is socks or gloves that no longer have the pair! Especially if it’s a colorful fun sort. You can fit gift cards, certificates, or even jewelry. Or how about an old hat?!
Try using old baskets that you’ve received gifts in before. Those are so beautiful and the recipient will be sure to reuse it themselves!
Second hand hand towels and dish towels work great too.
Unfortunately we are not a family that knows how to save wrapping paper. However, my mother was the queen of “don’t rip the paper open”. She would save any wrapping paper that wasn’t completely butchered by us kids.
I save all the many i-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-them paper artworks my 3 year old makes over the year and use those. The large ones, the small ones. We obviously keep the ones we like, the important ones, but much of it makes beautiful wrapping paper. Plus, she likes to use it as wrapping paper. And people like to admire her work as the open their gifts.
Many years ago, I bought clearanced holiday fabric and sewed wrapping bags up – then used those as a gift for my mom. I also bought discounted to/from tags, wrote common ones on them (to Genie, Love Mom), laminated them and then attatched a ribbon to them… Mom could then re-use gift tags and bags each year! I would love to claim credit for this idea, but my MIL was doing it YEARS ago… Not only is it cheaper and environmentally friendly – it’s also easier!
[...] the head Hacker at Parenthacks has a post up sharing some Free Alternatives to Gift Wrap. She’s sharing at [...]
How about an accidentally felted sweater? I just saw an idea for this somewhere recently (sorry! I can’t remember where!). They chopped off the arm of the sweater and used it as a wine bottle wrapper. You could chop up the front and back of the sweater and use it just like you’d use fabric scraps.
The gold foil off of easter eggs and fancy chocolate bars is really useful, but usually only big enough for small gifts. Often, the fancier the chocolate, the nicer the foil (especially the fair-trade bars, like Divine). So: go make a giant batch of Christmas fudge, and save the wrappers for presents!
My Mom uses old calendars that my Grandmother has been saving for years. Ask my husband, who received his birthday presents wrapped in a lovely 1997 Swiss calendar that my Grandmother recently gave my Mom.
A coworker of mine used to use tin foil to wrap his presents. Cheap, easy, shiny, and you don’t even need tape – just fold the ends over.
I use my daughters finger paintings. We paint a LOT . I take pictures of special paintings and then we wrap wrap wrap. Family members love getting presents in the handmade paper.
Old calendars and maps are also great to make envelopes (for cards and gift cards) – just trace around an envelope, cut it out, and use tape or a sticker to hold it closed.
Last night I cut up some catalogs to make gift bows – time consuming, but very cute. I followed these instructions:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=247280.0
We use old maps from my huz’s work (pilot) and my kids and I potato stamp the hearty brown paper that people use to pack packages.
[...] a few weeks ago I read the lovely Asha’s entry about free alternatives to traditional gift wrap. And I loved it. So much that I even bookmarked it, for future wrapping [...]