Don’t buy so much (or any!) wrapping paper this holiday season. There are many alternative ways to decorate the birthday, anniversary, holiday and other presents you pass around.
One of my favorites is to wrap gifts in the pages of discarded fashion magazines. The photos and illustrations are often colorful and stylish—and they make attractive patterns when folded around a box. You can even make “bows” out of the same magazines by cutting them into snowflake or other patterns and layering them on top.
Environmental Gift Wrap Alternative
Last year my fiancé and I wrapped all of our Christmas presents this way, and we got a little carried away afterward making collages out of our left-over raw materials.
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After our gifts were opened, the paper went into our recycle bin, as it would have before. But in the interim we reduced our carbon footprint and our holiday waste, saved a bit of money and had some creative fun in the process.
If you have kids, get them involved and take shameless advantage of their endless creativity. Give them carte blanche to decorate newspapers, magazines or paper bags using non-toxic finger paints or perhaps the tried and true potato-stamp method.
Look around your house for any other materials you might repurpose for wrapping gifts, and look with a creative eye. You might be surprised at what you’ll be able to pull together in the service of giving a loving gift while going easy on the Earth.
