Green Gift Wrap Ideas for the Holidays

Every Christmas my extended family gets together to exchange gifts. At the end of the evening, we usually have two whole trash bags full of gift wrap, headed for the landfill. Not only does traditional wrapping paper create lots of trash, it's expensive for something that is used only once, then ripped to pieces and thrown away. This year I hope to have a greener Christmas, so I've been thinking of ideas for green gift wrap.

Newspaper

When I was a little girl, my grandmother, who was very frugal, used to wrap children's gifts in the colorful comics from the Sunday paper. You can use other sections of the newspaper, as well; for instance, you can wrap toys in colorful advertisements for children's items, or wrap a gift for a sports fan in the sports section of the paper.

Children's Artwork

If you are like most mothers, you've got piles and piles of drawings and paintings made by your children. Of course you want to save some of their artwork but you've probably got more than you know what to do with. Colorful drawings and paintings by children made great wrapping paper for holiday gifts, especially for other family members who will appreciate your children's art as well as the gifts underneath the paper.

Decorative Boxes or Tins

If you give gifts in a decorative box or tin, you don't need any wrapping paper and the recipient of the gift can reuse the box to hold any number of things. I like to buy plain wooden boxes at my local craft supply store and paint them. Even sturdy cardboard boxes can be painted to look pretty. I also like to find old cookie tins at my favorite thrift store and use those for gift giving.

Cloth

You can use cloth napkins, silk scarves or simply large squares of colorful cloth to wrap gifts. Tie them up with a cloth ribbon in a contrasting color. The benefit to using cloth napkins or silk scarves, of course, is that the recipient of your gift can reuse them. If you have leftover pieces of fabric from past sewing projects, though, using those for gift wrap at least eliminates the need to purchase wrapping paper, even if the cloth does end up getting tossed out after the gifts are opened.

Drawstring Bags

I've done a lot of sewing lately and find myself with a large box of fabric scraps. I hate to throw things like that away so I've tried to find uses for all those scraps. I started sewing some together, patchwork quilt-style, and then making them into drawstring bags. I'm going to use them for giving gifts this holiday season, and recipients of my gifts can then use the bags for all sorts of things. They would be great for holding game pieces, toiletries or cosmetics, children's toys or building blocks, a sack lunch or even produce at the grocery store.