http://www.care2.com/greenliving/holiday-gift-bags-and-wrapping-paper.html
Green Holiday Gift Bags and Wrapping Paper
By Annie B. Bond
During the holidays and all through the year, give the gift of eco-consciousness by wrapping presents in creative and Earth-friendly ways.
Here are some fun, pretty gift wrapping solutions that protect natural resources.
Make Your Own Fabric Bags for Gifts
Begin a family tradition by making bags out of pretty holiday fabric tied with cloth ribbon, and placing your gifts in them. It is likely that everyone will really appreciate the idea of saving resources, and will save the bags to wrap their own gifts next year. Maybe someday fabric bags will be like chain letters—you give a gift to one person, who gives it to another, and maybe one day it will be given back to you!
Materials: Buy colorful fabric ribbon, and enough yardage of pretty fabric (holiday fabric is readily available in craft stores) to make the number of bags you want. You may also have some nice fabric stored at home in a drawer or closet. A little over a yard of 42″ to 45″ wide fabric will make two 20″ x 10″ inch bags.
Step 1: Choose the size bags you want to make and then adapt them to this pattern: For one 20″ x 10″ inch bag, cut out a piece of fabric 12″ x 42″ inches in size. Fold the fabric in half so that doubled it is 12″ x 21″ inches in size.
Step 2: With the “inside” sides pinned together, stitch the side seams on three sides. Turn inside out. Then turn inside the raw edge on the top of the bag and hem, either by hand or with a sewing machine.
Step 3: Cut a cloth ribbon at least 12″ long. At the seam of the bag on one side or the other, about 4 or 5 inches from the bag opening, stitch the middle of the ribbon to the bag.
Make Your Own Gift Wrapping Paper
Wrapped with natural raffia ribbon and decorated with crayons, brown grocery bags make very attractive wrapping. The straw-like look of undyed raffia makes a really lovely contrast to the brown bags.
Step 1: Cut paper grocery bags into squares.
Step 2: Tape together enough of the resulting squares of grocery bag paper to wrap the present.
Step 3: Color with crayons.
Step 4: Wrap the present and tie with natural raffia ribbon (available at craft shops).
More Wild, Worry-Free, Wrappings
Holiday wrapping can be much more fun than just covering a gift with colored paper. Delve into the options below for exciting green alternatives to store-bought wrapping.
Give a gift in a gift: A scarf with matching hair ribbon, a set of canisters, a towel, a sheet, a cup or mug, a hat or cigar box, or even a shirt all hold gifts without contributing to landfill problems. Visit a garage sale for more container ideas.
Recycled wrap: Select pictures and stories from newspapers, magazines, and old calendar pictures to make creative wrapping that thoughtfully suits your gift and/or its recipient.
- Wrap a travel-related present with an out-of-date road map.
- Wrap a present in old sheet music.
- Wrap presents with used paper or in used boxes and glue magazine pictures on top for color, humor and style.
- Reuse wrapping paper and spice it up by gluing on pictures taken from cards and magazines.
Bows: Use flowers or reusable hair ribbons instead of plastic bows. Packing: Use popcorn instead of conventional packing “peanuts” and insert a note explaining that birds can eat it.
Bag smart: Decorate used paper shopping bags (both brown grocery bags and white department store bags) with:
1. A poem hand written in bright colors.
2. Stenciled holiday decorations. (Cut a potato in half, and carve a stencil in the flat part of each half. Dip the stencil in paint.)
3. Hand paintings for a unique and personal touch.
4. Crayons as described above.
Buy smart: If you are going to purchase wrapping paper, avoid conventional wrapping paper with metallic colors. Such paper is often produced in an environmentally unfriendly manner. Instead, buy recycled wrapping paper.
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19 comments
add your comment »will be composting all possible kitchen refuse as well as recycling all the glass, paper, and plastics that make its way through here during the Holidays!
aaa akkus
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i have so many, skirts and dresses i don`t wear anymore.i don`t really want to give them to charities,because the nicer things never get to the needy.it`s all just business.
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I love the idea of the paper with seds in it
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Making gift wrap by reusing fabric, paper, etc. is a great idea, but not always practical. Ecorations Fabric Gift Wraps and Bags are a beautiful, reusable alternative. These bags, particularly at Christmas, fit right into the "family heirloom/tradition" idea of reusing year after year. www.ecorations.com
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We want to invite your readers to put their creativity to the test by entering Ecoscene's "Alternative Wrapping Paper Contest." Click on the following link for more information: http://www.ecosceneinc.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/12/19/Alternative-Wrapping-Paper-Contest
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i also use brown mailing paper because it's recyclable, and regular wrapping paper is not since it's got toxic dyes in it. I use non-toxic crayons to decorate.
This year i bought mini re-usable gift bags that way my mom/sisters can use them again next year and so on.
Also, I want to buy the reusable grocery bags to give as gifts and use them as the gift bag.
I'd love to use towels but it's so heavy to mail, maybe i will try fabric also this year.
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I'll have to use some of these ideas, Annie--thanks!
If you're looking for something a little more formal but equally responsible, try wrapping a present in a handwoven basket made by African artisans or a wine gift bag made from Sri Lankan palm leaves. They're relatively inexpensive, and are really gifts of their own. You can find these items at Global Goods Partners, a great poverty-relief, women's empowerment organization where I currently intern.
Here a link to the gift basket:
http://www.globalgoodspartners.org/cart/Details.cfm?ProdID=150&category=0
And here's one to the wine bag:
http://www.globalgoodspartners.org/cart/Details.cfm?ProdID=141&category=0
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Wonderful ideas which I hope to use this year. I'm already thinking about how to use them, especially this year. Wrapping gifts in Tea (dish) towels, sewing laundry bags (possibly using old clothing, pillow cases, table cloths, sheets etc. using them to put gifts in. I plan to get started early making a few items at a time.
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I like to recycle old children's books by using the pages as wrapping paper. It can look quite classy and arty sometimes!
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As an alternative to buying "holiday fabric" for sewing bags, consider shopping your local thrift store for nice fabrics sewn up as clothes. You can make a great over-sized hankie from the back of a man's shirt, for instance. And women's skirts will give you plenty of yardage to make into a bag. Don't buy new - reuse!
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