Christmas Gifting

some gifts I will be giving

I always try to get innovative with my wrapping paper.  Being as environmental as I try to be, I can't stand the idea of buying tons of wrapping paper like we did when I was growing up.  Sure, it's cute and looks fancy, but I think there are a lot of other things you can do to save money and recycle what you already have.

In the past I have used magazine pages taped together, comics pages from the Sunday paper, brown paper bags from the grocery store, and my blue lines from my drafting final project in undergrad.  One thing I do every year is keep the bags which I receive gifts in and use them the following year for presents I give to others.  I also keep paper bags from every store and restaurant I get them from and store them for gifts.  You can dress it up with a little tissue paper or newspaper, depending on the holiday and the route you wish to go with the gift.

This year I did something which I used to spend a lot of time doing as a teenager, decorating shoe boxes.  For my work party I decorated a shoe box with pages from design magazines.  It sounds so simple, but it can be tricky getting the pages just where you want them and overlapping them in the right way.  It can really become an art piece if you let it.  For a few other boxes which I am giving to family members I did buy a small roll of Christmas wrap from Target (it was $1).  I wrapped the box tops separately from the bottoms, that way they can be held together with ribbon and reused for years to come.  This is a very economical way to wrap and obviously environmental, just as long as you give them to people who you know will save them and reuse them in the future.  Also, it is great for those of us that have to travel by plane for the holidays, because if you have typically wrapped gifts and your bag is chosen for screening, TSA will open your presents.  Who wants to have to rewrap frantically after reaching their destination?

I love wrapping presents and I hope that I have given you last minute gifters an idea or two on how to be environmental and savvy when giving gifts.