Eco-friendly Gift Wrapping

Over the past few weeks several people have asked me about eco-friendly wrapping paper so with Christmas just around the corner I thought it might be a good time to write a bit about how I wrap my presents.

In about October I always have this lovely vision of me spending an evening happily wrapping all the Christmas presents whilst sipping mulled wine and listening to carols. The reality is normally a frazzled me cursing because I’ve lost the end of the sellotape and cut the piece of paper just a bit too small. The mulled wine is usually replaced with a Lemsip because I’ve succumbed to a well timed pre-Christmas cold, and to be honest it’s all a bit stressful. Last year was the first year I tried to be more eco-friendly with my present wrapping, and it’s not without its challenges but at least not using sellotape eliminates that particular source of stress!

I’ve still got several rolls of Christmas wrapping paper so I’m going to use that up as well as using some of the brown paper I use for present wrapping during the year. If you haven’t got a stash of wrapping paper make sure what sort of paper your local council will recycle. As a rule anything with glitter on or foil style paper can’t be recycled – try scrunching it up in a ball: if it stays scrunched up it can usually be recycled. The brown parcel wrapping paper is becoming increasingly easy to find and can definitely be recycled so this is probably the best option. If you’ve got the time and inclination you could decorate it with stamps etc…

I now wrap all my presents without sellotape. It can take a few goes to get the knack but it’s pretty easy once you’ve got the hang of it – I even managed to wrap an umbrella! I tend to use wool to tie round my parcels as I’ve got a big stash that I use for my crochet but string, ribbon or embroidery thread would all work well.

Start by placing the item on the paper and cutting a piece big enough to wrap round it. Then bring the edges in and fold the ends in as you would if you were going to use sellotape.

It can help to use something small and heavy like a coaster or your phone to hold the folded paper in place whilst you tie the string.

Take a decent length of string and slide it underneath the parcel, bring the ends together and cross them over. Take the two ends and bring them over the middle of the parcel. Turn the parcel over and thread the ends under the piece of string going across the parcel and tie in a knot or bow.

Depending on the size and shape of your gift you might need to secure it with an additional piece of string.

You can thread on a gift tag too. Written down this all sounds rather complicated but it’s actually fairly simple, you just need to make sure that you keep the string over the folded ends of the paper so that everything stays in place.

The great thing about wrapping like this is that the paper can be recycled easily or better still it can be reused. I’ve got a big bag of paper from last Christmas which I’m planning to reuse. My mum says that my granny, who lived through the Second World War, always saved wrapping paper and would even iron it to make it easier to reuse! Hang on to the string and reuse that too!

When I was a child my mum always used to give me a pile of old Christmas cards to cut up and make gift tags with and that’s exactly what I’ve started doing again. I feel a bit mean that I’m not buying the ones the kids designed at school and we then buy to raise money for the PTA but I’d far sooner recycle the cards and maybe if I run out of tags I can get the kids to make a few.