I'm a sucker for a nicely wrapped gift. Yes, I'm that awkward person that carefully unwraps her gifts to avoid ripping the paper. I don't rewrap gifts with the paper, but I do sometimes use it in other ways. Some possible ways to reuse old paper include shredding it to package and protect other gifts, using it for your scrapbooks or using it to cover photo frames for some festive wall art around the holidays. But who says you need to use wrapping paper at all? Here are a few sites and blogs with unique wrapping ideas using everyday (and sometimes unusual) materials.
Towels
This MSN article recommends using a towel or sheet to wrap a gift. At first, that seemed weird. After I thought about it for a moment, it seemed like a wonderful idea. Summertime gifts for birthdays, graduation, Father's Day, etc. could be wrapped in a beach towel, which wouldn't seem weird at all. For household showers, kitchen towels or bath towels could be used to wrap other gifts. It's a pretty cool idea, actually.
Plastic tablecloths
This article at Living on a Dime recommends using plastic tablecloths to wrap large gifts. Genius! I've often encountered a problem of not having enough wrapping paper when trying to cover large gifts. The edges end up weird, paper overlaps in all the wrong places...it gets messy. A tablecloth would be much more manageable, and they come in lots of fun colors for $1 a piece at your local dollar store.
Fabric strips
The same article recommended cutting Christmas fabric into strips to use as ribbon. This could be done with any type of fabric, though. Use old clothes that aren't nice enough to give away. Use old sheets and tablecloths. The possibilities are endless. If you need some tips on turning those strips into beautiful bows, take a look at this tutorial for making pom-pom bows with scraps of fabric.
How have you saved money on gift wrap?
Photo courtesy erika g. via Flickr.
3 comments