Down to Earth
9 Ways to Guilt-Free Gift Wrapping
'Tis the season for brown paper packages tied up with string. And a few more of your favorite things. But how do you make those presents a little bit more eco-chic? And what to do with all the left over paper once the presents have been passed out?
Picture perfect presents don't just belong on Pinterest!
Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with a few quick tips to take your giftwrap game to the next level:
1. Repurpose your paper. Newspaper, that is. The Sunday comics are especially colorful (and lol), but any section will work. Think Style for a fashionable friend or Tech for your gadget-obsessed sibling.
2. Or wrap it with a map. Amp up the personal factor by choosing maps of special places significant to your lucky gift recipient.
Take your giftwrap game to the next level.
3. Brown bag it. Plain grocery sacks can be a brilliant blank canvas for your artistic ambitions. You can paint, decorate or go for a planet-friendly double down by decoupaging with old magazine cutouts.
4. Have fun with fabric. In Japan, the practice of wrapping & carting goods in cloth is known as furoshiki. You can go furoshiki on your friend’s present by encasing the bestseller you bought her in a colorful swatch of fabric she can wear as a scarf. Or turn into a pillow if she’s feeling crafty.
5. Freshen up. Instead of bows & ribbons, accent your package with a sprig of pine or spray of flowers. Looks great & smells better.
6. Dazzle with your display. A particularly stunning piece of paper can be pressed into service as a drawer or tray liner or even framed & hung on a wall.
7. Turn it into streamers, banners & bows. Holiday party decorations DONE.
Just bow & go!
8. Shred it. Old paper is the perfect packing material when you’re shipping valuables. Plus, it works really well as festive filler in gift bags (that you’re reusing, obviously). It’s also great confetti—Happy New Year!
9. Skip the wrap entirely. Select something special that comes in gorgeous packaging (like these super chic coasters). In the words of design guru Jonathan Adler, you can just “bow & go!”