This Holiday Season, Wrap Your Gifts With Sustainable Style And A Personal Touch
Written by DC EcoWomen Board Member Catherine Sweitzer
Whether DIY is a personal mantra or a nice idea you keep at arm’s length, there are many ways to make your gift wrapping a little more festive AND green.
Most of my holiday projects are about the same: cute with minimal dedication. Greening your holidays doesn’t need to be an added burden this busy month! I used three simple ideas while wrapping gifts this year: a recycled tree cutout, map wrap, and magazine streamer. Keep reading to learn how to wrap it yourself!
Stuff You Need:
Paper Bags
Maps or Newspaper
Magazines
Ribbon
Glue
Tape
Scissors
The bags I used were left over from Sweet Green take-out and holiday shopping – go ahead and raid your stash of Whole Foods bags for an instant abundance of wrapping supplies. The maps and magazines were things I found around the office, although both can be found thrift stores.
And don’t forget the last thing you need: Gifts!
Now for the wrapping ideas!
Recycled Tree Cutout
Need – Brown Bag, Magazine, Scissors, Tape
Choose a bag that will be appropriate for the size of your gift. Then choose a magazine image that you would like to be peeking through your wrapping paper.
Grab the paper bags and pop open the bottom of the bag and flatten it out. It looks a bit like this:
Cut off the handles of the handles of the bag then cut the bag lengthwise to create a large piece of wrapping paper.
Cut HALF of a tree in what will be the “front” of your wrapping paper (as you can see I goofed up the “half” bit on the bottom).
Grab your image and tape it to the front of your gift. Line up the wrapping paper so your image is peeking through, tape it just right and tah dah! green gift wrap magic:
Map Wrap
Need – Map, Tape, Ribbon, Scissors
Check out the photo of the presents under the tree if you need to be sold on how darling this looks when finished!
It isn’t fancy but newspaper or a map as wrapping paper turns out well especially with a little ribbon for flair. For extra points, use cloth ribbon with wire, which is easily reusable.
Magazine Streamer
Need – Magazine, Tape, Scissors
Some things are difficult to wrap. Namely, anything that isn’t in the shape of a square or rectangle. By cutting strips of magazine, newspaper, or a map you can piece together wrapping paper that fits the form of your gift AND it looks artsy.
For this, I cut strips of magazine to be wrapped around bracelets.
The bracelets turned into a small wreath of glossy magazine photos; the possible results are as varied as the shapes of all of the awkward-to-wrap gifts!
If you need a little extra help gift-wrapping, don’t forget to stop by the DC EcoWomen Gift Wrapping Fundraiser happening throughout the next couple of weeks.
Here’s to a happy holiday season, may it be filled with green and festive DIY-ing!