Ideas for Using Recycled Wrapping Paper with Your Crafts

Every birthday or holiday gift-giving event inevitably leaves us with a mound of used wrapping paper. Before you gather the paper up for your recycling bin, salvage the majority of it, flatten it out, and consider using in the following ways for all your craft needs:

Jewelry Making. Recycled wrapping paper is an excellent paper to use for making paper beads. Also, adhere wrapping paper pieces to larger beads for a colorful touch, or to earring metals to create a new and interesting finish.

Card Making. Make a beautiful card front using recycled wrapping paper as the base and using a cut-out from the paper as an embellishment. Use the wrapping paper to make mock gift tags for your card front, as die cut shapes, or layer for a stripped effect.

Wood Crafts. Use a little spray adhesive to adhere recycled wrapping paper to wood, and then cut along shape with a razor knife to create beautiful finishes on your wood crafts. This works particularly well with wooden alphabet letters. Create a colorful name keepsake and seal the wrapping paper onto the wood using Mod Podge or another sealant.

Origami. Recycled wrapping paper works very well with most origami crafts. Just cut into the size shape needed and substitute for origami paper.

Box Making. Recycled wrapping paper makes a wonderful "cover" for any box making craft. Use baby-themed paper to make a child keepsake box, or bright striped paper for all-purpose storage boxes. Use spray adhesive to attach paper and a sealant to create a more permanent finish.

Candy Making. Fashion recycled wrapping paper into candy cups or use to create a stylish wrap for candy bars. Use recycled ribbon to tie around the candy bars for an extra special presentation. You can also wrap candy gift boxes with recycled wrapping paper. As the gift boxes are small, it's easy to cut a piece of undamaged paper from your leftover wrapping paper to fit.

Children's Crafts. There's an unlimited supply of ideas for using recycled wrapping paper in children's crafts from using the paper for collages to decorating the walls of a dollhouse.

If you are looking for a beautiful Christmas craft, use the paper along with Styrofoam balls to create Christmas ornaments. Cut strips of wrapping paper and help the child to adhere them in an overlapping pattern. Older children might enjoy cutting the paper into one inch squares and using pins in the center to create a textured look.

Flower Crafts. Substitute crepe paper with recycled wrapping paper to make colorful, contemporary flowers for your paper floral arrangements. Or use recycled wrapping paper to line vases or to create a lifting base for floral arrangements. If you like to garden and gift cut flowers, use the recycled wrapping paper and recycled tissue paper to wrap your arrangement in a florist-like package.

Scrapbooking. Use recycled wrapping paper as a page background, for die cut shapes, or even to fashion a mock present on your scrapbook page. Wrapping paper also makes a great scrapbook cover base for special projects, such as Christmas scrapbooks or wedding photo albums.

Glass Jar Crafts. Recycled wrapping paper makes a great outer covering for glass jar crafts or a colorful inner lining. Use spray adhesive to adhere paper to glass.

Basket Crafts. Shred the recycled wrapping paper to use as a basket filler. Take strips of recycled wrapping paper and weave them into the basket for a festive look.

Decoupage Crafts. It's almost a no-brainer that recycled wrapping paper is a fabulous paper to use for decoupage crafts. The bright images on wrapping paper will look lovely. Cut out the images from the recycled wrapping paper and use on candles, eggs, vases, pictures, and other decoupage crafts.