Now that you've taken care of buying your Holiday gifts, now what?
You need to prepare them for the giving.
For most people, that means wrapping them or otherwise hiding them inside of some container and decorating the outside.
I'd like to direct you to a post I wrote last December about frugal Gift Wrapping.
Before you go spend a gazillion dollars on something that will destroy old growth forests, then the product will get destroyed itself and thrown away shortly after purchase, go have a read. Buying new gift wrap is NOT frugal, no matter how little you pay for it, when there are viable alternatives.
Save the green in your wallet AND the green in nature and say NO!
There's a brief history at the link on the story of wrapping paper in this country to entertain you as well.
The link is HERE.
It's an oldie but a goody. ;-)
Sluggy
I think we will wrap this year using whatever paper we already have on hand. Kat is at the tail end of her belief in Santa, and we want to keep it going through this Christmas. I think by next year (once she knows that Santa isn't the one making those gift magically appear) we will either start using reusable cloth gift bags, start making the wrapper part of the gift (like a storage ottoman or a canister or fabric to be sewn later) or we will just not wrap our gifts at all. We don't put them out until Christmas Eve anyway, so they don't really need to be wrapped.
ReplyDeleteWe use whatever paper we've got laying around, then the comics newspapers, foil, and decorated butcher paper. Someone on Freecycle gave me 4 rolls of bright green paper this year too.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I'll make a bag to tuck things into. This year, I've gotten a bunch of wooden decorated boxes from an auction that didn't sell in my antique shop. So I'm tucking things inside of them and just setting them under the tree.
I am also using up paper I already have. Thanks for the reminder of that wonderful post you wrote last year though.
ReplyDeleteWe have so much paper left from day-after-xmas sales in years past that I don't know if we'll ever need to use anything else. But I love the ideas and will certainly keep them in mind if/when the need does arise. I love the idea of sewing various size bags that can be reused year after year!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder, Sluggy. All great ideas. We still have wrapping paper from Christmases past that may last another few years as we don't wrap a lot of gifts. We use gift bags from the $ store, but most of the family reuses them, so you will see the same bags year after year. Last year, I got reusable Kroger shopping bags for $.50 to put my jam and bread in. They were a hit as most of the family uses the reusable bags. I may get some Christmas fabric after Christmas and make some reusable wraps for next year.
ReplyDeleteAnnieJ--Make the wrapping part of the gift is an awesome idea!
ReplyDeleteMcVal--Great use for those decorated crates!
Precious&Pretty--We've got tons of leftover paper too. I just hope I can keep myself from falling for all those clearance deals on wrapping paper after the Holidays!lol
Frances--Giving reusable bags is a very green solution to the problem. I keep wanting to make xmas reusable bags or furoshiki myself but I can't seem to locate my box of xmas fabric...I've been looking for 2 yrs now.lol