Today, I have some eco-friendly Christmas wrapping ideas to share with you. With a dash of creativity, and a little upcycling or reusing, you can have a beautiful Christmas that will also be eco-friendly.
Did you know that (in Niagara at least) wrapping paper isn’t recyclable? If you read the direction on the Niagara Region’s Waste Disposal information site, they say
Table of Contents
” Wrapping Paper – Place in the garbage. The cardboard core can be recycled in the Grey Box. ”
Gah! What is one to do? No fear, I’m here to give you eco-Christmas wrapping ideas for your Christmas presents.
Kraft Paper
I used Kraft paper last year. It’s easily available at Craft stores in big rolls, or dollar stores in smaller roles. If you don’t know what Kraft paper is, it is brownish paper that your paper grocery bags are made of or used for packaging.
Kraft paper is plain, but you might want to embellish it with paper doilies, pine boughs, stamps, doodles, twine, or even Christmas cookie cutters
And, when you are done with your Kraft paper, (if you can’t reuse or repurpose it) you can throw it in the Green Bin to be composted. Just remember to remove the tape before placing it in the bin.
Re-Used Gift Bags
I won’t recommend buying Gift bags. Gift Bags aren’t eco-friendly since they contain plastic coatings, however, you can reuse them several times.
In my household, we save and reuse all the gift bags we receive, and not just the Christmas ones. If you already have them, you might as well reuse them since throwing them out would just be a waste.
Re-Use Gift Boxes
Along the same line as reusing gift bags, we keep and reuse any gift boxes that we have. This one is so cute, you don’t have to wrap it. Simply add a bow!
Make a Newspaper Gift Bag
If you don’t have any gift bags to reuse, don’t fret, you can make one yourself using Newsprint or whatever creative paper you might have on hand. Check out this tutorial on how to make a gift bag. I think they are super cute.
I gave it a try myself and check out how cute it turned out!
UpCycled Bows
Those pretty bows we like to put on our presents are all made of plastic. Consider making your own with upcycled paper.
So, I’m not the craftiest person. You might hear me say “I’m no Martha Stewart” every once in a while. Because of this, I’ll let Martha Stewart herself explain to you how to make a Bow. You can use the same procedure and upcycle old magazines, calendars, newspapers (like I did in the image above) or coloured plastic bags. I’m planning on making a few of these and testing out different materials!
Get Creative
Another great eco-friendly Christmas wrapping idea is to reuse something you already have in your home to wrap your presents. Here are some ideas that might make beautiful wrapping if you use them creatively:
- Old Maps,
- Comic Strips
- Sheet Music
- Word Search
Make and Reuse Cloth Gift Bags
A friend of my twin sister made the bag picture above using leftover material. I received it with a gift inside. I’m going to be reusing this year, but I’m also thinking of making some myself this year (perhaps a tutorial is coming soon!).
Furoshiki
Sewing is not your thing? Then you can try wrapping gifts in the Furoshiki way. What is Furoshiki? It’s a Japanese way of wrapping things using square pieces of cloth. Here’s a video that will show you how:
There are so many ways you can wrap presents this Christmas and keep them aligned with your eco-friendly values. You can use papers that can be recycled or composted, re-use gift bags, upcycle by making your wraps, bows, and bags, you just need some creativity! I’m going to be using all of these creative strategies this Christmas season. What eco-friendly Christmas wrapping ideas do you have? I’d love to hear about them!
If you liked this post, you might also enjoy my Ultimate Gift Guide to Eco-Friendly Stocking Stuffers.
Great ideas thank you. I’ve been keeping wrapping paper, gift bags and ribbon to reuse for a couple of years now so we have lots. When it runs out I love the newspaper gift bag idea so I’ll give that a go.
I can recycle wrapping paper where I live as long as there’s no glitter on it and it’s not the ‘metallic’ paper, though of course it’s better to reuse.
Such great ideas – definitely going to try more of these this yr, like the fabric re-usable wraps. But I already always re-use paper until I can’t anymore (drives my hubby nutty haha!). I also always cut all the fronts of my Christmas cards (previous yrs) to use as gift tags and I am swapping fully to washi tape this yr too 🙂
Love the newspaper idea. Gonna try it this year.
That’s a great one, can be pretty too!
We always reuse gift bags and gift boxes! I have way too many stored away for re-use at Christmas. I like the cloth bag idea. It’ll take up less space.
These are all great ideas! One thing I’m doing this year is using pretty boxes for gifts that don’t even need wrapping paper. Just putting a reused bow or ribbon on them and calling it good to go!
Yes, also a great idea!