Easy, Cheap Gift Wrapping

Now you have all that Christmas or Hanukah shopping done, it's time to wrap all those things. You don't have to invest in tons of gift wrap or gift bags. Use what you have or get creative. You can even use the gifts as wrappings. This is a time of giving and receiving and this can also be a time for recycling, protecting the earth and being creative without being wasteful.

Things to look for:

Old tablecloths. Dish towels, paper towel tubes. Coffee cans. Colored Saran Wrap. Shoelaces. String. Newspaper. Plan brown paper/newsprint from any stationery store. Newspaper. Funny papers.Old baskets. Balloons.

You can cover any paper towel tube with colored paper or colored tissue paper and use that to put socks, scarves, small tools, packages of pens and pencils etc. inside. I always attach an ornament to the packages I wrap. Use simple Elmer's glue to hold the tissue paper on the tube. You can also let the kids put stickers on the plain tube or write directly on the tube. You can write HOHOHO or the person's name all over teh package.

Anything oddly shaped can be wrapped in a tablecloth or sheet. You can find these at garage sales for next to nothing. If you haven't got them now keep your eyes peeled during the year and plan ahead. You just bunch it up like a hobo bag and tie it off with a ribbon or cord. Plain twine looks perfectly nice tied on a package. Add a little ornament and that will jazz it up.

Coffee cans can be painted with enamel paint . You can get enamel paint for about .79 at a craft store for a small bottle or spring for a spray can of gold or silver. Add a bow to the plastic lid. You can fit all sorts of items inside. Tonka trucks, small toys, again a scarf.

Colored Saran wrap is super for applying to the cans or tubes or you can use it by itself to wrap a gift. After Christmas this is usually greatly reduced. Check Target's 90% off after Christmas sales. Be sure to look in the food aisles for reduced Christmas themed items like this.

Shoelaces are cute to use as ties instead of ribbon. If you're a good garage sale junkie you can find ribbon at garage sales but the laces are useful.

A scarf can wrap a gift and be a gift at the same time.Wrapping and tagging go hand in hand. Be creative.

Balloons: Buy a bag of balloons, blow one up, insert a gift certificate or cash. This is an adorale way to give a gift and it's good any season.

If you give something practical for a baby like diapers, bibs, tee shirts, onesies you can roll the tees and onesies tightly and then tie them with a twizzler close to the top of the roll. This will look like a rose. Pack a few of these together and make a paper cone so it looks like a bouquet of flowers. Diapers can be formed into a cake. You can go multi tiered or one layer depending on how many diapers you wish to give. You can find the one two three on how to put this together on any craft site. This doesn't require wrapping, the diapers are the gift and the wrapping. A bunch of bloacks that spell the child's name can be mounted on a dolalr store chalk board and you can wrap this in saran or cellophane. ALl inexpnsive but personal and easy. I've found tubes of cellophane for $2.39 at Odd Lot type stores.

Baskets are great to fill with gifts, they always make for good presentation and are reusable.

When you get packages through out the year save the boxes. Cover these with newsprint or the funny pages and you have a cleverly wrapped present.

Take pictures of people receiving their gifts and use them as tags for the following year. You can also enlarge the picture and paste it to the wrapping on the present the person will receive next year. They can easily spot what gift is for them and it's a cute way to adorn the wrapping.

So many people send family photos. Put these on next years gifts. Recylece their pictures this way and you have less clutter.

Anything can be an ornament for the gift. Sprigs of greenery from the yard, a tin can lid that you've pastsed the recipients picture on, a candy cane with pipe cleaner horns and jiggly eyes becomes a rheindeer. Old Christmas cards can be cut, you ditch the poem and signature part and save the front to use as a agift tag. By the way you can also make great book marks out of these. Folded in a half you just glue gun a small magnet to each side and this holds the page you're saving. More easy recycling. This also makes a cute gift or tag for a package.Doing this isi also living green. You are recycling items that would ordinarily be garbage and giving them a second life. Plain wooden unpainted or painted shapes are available at any craft store. Add a photo to one of these and for about .25 you have a gift tag and a gift. See picture.

Tryng looking at things with a eye in mind for reuse and repackaging. All those plastic packages items come in can be cut into future tags as well. You can write on them with magic marker or glue a cute picture to them and they become ags reather than more garbage.

Think outside the box, no pun intended.