9 Gift Wrapping Ideas for a Waste-Free Holiday

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas for Less Holiday Waste

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas for Less Holiday Waste

Whether you’re lovingly creating handmade gifts for your whole list or decided to shop for most of your gifts this year, a little handmade gift wrapping adds some extra heart. Here are some DIY gift wrapping ideas that cost less and waste less.

Need handmade gift ideas? I’m working on a mega-roundup for next week with all sorts of holiday gift ideas for all sorts of recipients. Stay tuned!

The list below is part of Important Media’s “More Love, Less Stuff” holiday event. All across our huge network of sites, we’re talking about ways that we can rethink our holiday traditions to make this year kinder, more thoughtful, and less wasteful.

So, what does eco-friendly gift wrapping have to do with More Love, Less Stuff? So much! When we were talking topics for this event, Jo Borras, site director at Gas2 and Insteading, pointed out that having a sustainable holiday doesn’t have to mean giving up gifts entirely. We all want gifts, you guys (if my family is reading, I’m serious. I want stuff!). What we don’t want are just gifts for the sake of gifts. We want a thoughtful experience gift or something handmade with love and care.

And we want it wrapped in reusable or recycled packaging.

Below are nine ideas for handmade gift wrapping and tags that use recycled materials. And most of these ideas are reusable, too, which means more love and less waste!

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas

DIY Gift Wrapping: Furoshiki

photo by liron

1. Furoshiki – This is the classic reusable giftwrap. Furoshiki is a Japanese technique for wrapping all sorts of gifts in fabric. Bonus points if you can use stash fabric or make the fabric part of the gift.

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Basic Fabric Bag

2. Fabric Gift Bags – Raid your stash and sew up a custom-sized fabric gift bag with a flat bottom. Your recipient can use it to wrap a gift for someone else later!

Holiday Gift Wrapping: Easy Drawstring Bag

3. Drawstring Gift Bag – Need to wrap a lot of gifts? Check out this super easy tute for making drawstring bags. You can size them to fix basically anything.

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Coffee Gift Card Holder

4. Coffee Cozy Gift Card – OK, this one is pretty specific, but for a coffee-drinker, it’s the perfect experience gift. Give a coffee cozy with a pocket for the gift card built right in.

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Coffee Gift Card Holder: Upcycled Gift Box

5. Upcycled Gift Box – Turn an old cracker or cookie box into a cute gift box decorated with an old greeting card.

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Coffee Gift Card Holder: Origami Gift Box

6. Origami Box – Sacrifice your 2014 calendar a little bit early and turn it into a small treat box with a lid. Perfect for tiny gifts, and your giftee can reuse the box!

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Coffee Gift Card Holder: Chalkboard Gift Tags

7. Reusable Chalk Gift Tags – A little reclaimed cardboard and a little chalk paint, and you’ve got yourself a set of gift tags that you can regift over and over.

9 DIY Gift Wrapping Ideas: Junk Mail Gift Tags

8. Junk Mail Gift Tags – Junk mail envelopes are the perfect medium for making cute, simple gift tags.

9 Handmade Gift Wrapping Ideas: Comic Book Gift Tags

9. Comic Book Gift Tags – Use a punch to turn old comic books into new gift tags in less than five minutes. Easy peasy!

2 thoughts on “9 Gift Wrapping Ideas for a Waste-Free Holiday”

  1. Pingback: Crafting a Green World | The home for green crafts and tutorials!

  2. Pingback: Crafting a Green World | The home for green crafts and tutorials!

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