It's a Wrap

 Moving on from all those presents you could be forgiven that we're terribly wasteful in terms of wrapping and frills. After all, whether it's 30 presents or 26 or whatever that seems like a lot of paper that simply gets thrown away. So here's what we do...

Month 7 - Bite 25 

We try to use what we've got. Sometimes that's paper left over from a different occasion and at others it's a matter of carefully folding paper that's been unwrapped and keeping it for another time, especially when we're doing a lot of small presents.

There are times when tissue paper is the answer. It quite often gets used as crafting materials afterwards for papier mache or collages. Now and again I've been known to wrap gifts in magazine pages, particularly if the pictures on them link to the present inside (and once more they go into the craft box when discarded).

When I finally get round to Christmas I'll go into designing individual paper without it costing the earth, either financially or environmentally.

Finally I have used a scarf or fabric wrap that forms part of the present itself as the outer wrapping!

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Then, of course, there's gift bags. There are some gift and bottle bags that have been doing the rounds between us for a number of years! As we give them to each other it's part of the gift giving process to try and remember who passed on the bag last! Now and again we need to buy new ones, but as far as we can they go back and forth (minus the contents naturally). There's also a nice decorative box that I give back to someone each time so that they can refill it with toiletries as my present - I can't remember how old that is, but it's sort of become a tradition now....

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There are other gift bags too. I think I may have shown these before...

I made them from some fabric I got for £1 at a local market and by adding leftover curtain lining I got four tote bags out of it that went on to be presents as well as gift bags.

This year for my niece I couldn't resist this lovely tote I saw, so her presents are going to her in this so she can use her 'gift bag' as a shopping bag!