Tis the Season to be Eco-friendly! During the gift giving season it is easy to go through so much paper waste. Try these cool new ideas to wrap presents that will make your gifts even more amazing!
Reusable Bags
Reusable bags are great containers for gifts and are even cheaper than buying the disposable ones. The bags are perfect for grocery shopping and retail shopping. It is also part of the gift! This helps save the planet by reducing plastic bag waste.
Gift Baskets
Create beautiful gift baskets without the plastic wrap. The baskets and containers can be used for storage. You can get fun and creative with these ideas. Bonus points for buying your containers in second hand stores. This helps reduce waste and often benefits a charitable cause.
Flower Pots
Check out this creative idea! You can put gifts of all sorts of sizes in flower pots. You can use the drip tray as a lid for the gift. Try and include seeds for the person receiving the gift to plant. You can really have fun by painting or decorating the flower pot.
Get Creative with Paper
Reuse paper instead of purchasing wrapping paper. If you get newspapers, the colorful comics section is great for wrapping presents. Old maps, posters, and calendars are beautiful for wrapping presents with. If you have an old coloring book try using those pages and include crayons for the kids to color the pages with. The kids will love being able to use the wrapping paper! Another fun, interactive idea is old word searches. Old music sheets are perfect for wrapping gifts for the music lover! You can also use paper bags with ribbon on top.
Re-purpose Junk Mail
Make a statement against wasteful junk mail by using it to wrap presents. The colorful coupons work perfectly for wrapping presents and helps people think about junk mail. Use the back side of the pages that are blank and decorate with stamps! This will look beautiful and homemade wile saving the planet.
Get Creative with Decorating
Instead of plastic bows and ribbon try decorating your gifts with fallen branches, pine cones, or beautiful fall leaves. Other ideas are wooden spoons or homemade gingerbread cookies. These items will put your gift wrapping abilities over the top and is much more Eco-friendly than single use plastic ribbons.
Use the Container as the Gift
Some fun ideas include putting your gift in a pot, strainer, or bowl for someone who loves cooking. For a gardener you can use a watering can. Purses or backpacks are great gifts that you can put smaller gifts inside. A stocking is also a fun container to use that can be used again during the holidays. Fluffy socks of big slippers stuffed with spa day activities is an adorable way to make someone’s day without waste. For a movie lover a popcorn container is perfect for holding movie day treats.
Fabric
Save your old shirts and fabric and use them for gift wrapping. Old men’s shirts work great for this as well as bandannas. Scarves are also perfect as part of the gift and the wrapping. Use old fabric as an alternative to single use ribbon.