green wrapping

The holidays are here! Being green during the holidays without turning into a total scrooge is tricky. One area that might be easy to green is giftwrap.

For one, if you use wrapping paper, be sure to recycle it (or even reuse it) after you've opened the gift. Personally, I am still working my way through an order of gift wrap from my nieces' school, purchased several years ago. But once that is gone, I wondered, would I buy more? Or do something else?

I remembered my brilliant and talented friend Laura started making her own gift bags last year. She makes such gorgeous bags from scrap materials that they are gifts in and of themselves. Look at some of the samples she shared with me for this post:

I think it would take me awhile to get to Laura's level of craft. Perhaps I could make simpler gift bags in various sizes just for our family occasions (more like a pillow case??) We could reuse them every holiday. Maybe they could become familiar parts of the tradition, kind of like when you open the tree ornaments every year and pick out your favorite ones to hang. Amazon ships large/bulky gift items in sacks, why not make our own? Time to get out the sewing machine and figure out how to use it, eh?

I even saw another sack idea on the petit planet blog. I guess they are items you can buy. How clever! I never knew.

Oh, and if you do like to purchase gift paper, try to find some made from recycled paper. It isn't easy to do, but I did come across one called Fish Lips Paper Designs.