Clever, Pretty Eco-Wrapping for Your Christmas Presents

I can't believe they missed my favourite trick: save up and use the funnies/ comics page from your local newspaper....kids especially love them. Really, any interesting graphic will do.

Ditto yoshhash. For anyone trying it for the first time I try to make sure I send a whole comic to a person, even if its split up into several gifts. My grandmother could wrap a present in paper with no tape, but I'm not that skilled and I still rely on Scotch

I use to recycle old easter-eggs-paper (eheh!)... colourful newspaper sheets... wax paper for the cookies... But my favourite solution is giving the packaging AS a present :-) I think is pretty nice when you can re-use your present box for keep your stuffs... so I choose robust boxes and possibly I coat them with pictures, images, cuts out and so on!

I find some of those interesting, but the sock and giant clothespin just bug me. I think it's because the sock looks ridiculous, and I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to keep an ugly giant clothespin around.

I once wrapped a whole bunch of candles individually using the comic pages and raffia. I rolled the candles up like a tootsie pop and then tied raffia to both ends. both the comic pages and the raffia can be put in the recycling bin after use.

Zig

I once used colorful Chinese newspapers I picked up in New York's Chinatown to wrap presents. Anything your giftees will find exotic or different or relevant can be good. Old "blueprints" (now giant photocopies, really) are great for wrapping gifts for architects, engineers and such.

Plain old craft paper with colorful ribbon is classic.

I love the old architects blueprints -- a fave of mine. Or an old maps of the world book, tossed to the trash. Pages of old books -- really old books, that no one will read, as well as old mags. Exotic and cool.

This year my kids and I used newspaper for wrapping paper. We wrote all over it with colored markers in red and green and painted the persons name on top. It actually looks very cute. We also made a paste out of flour and water and used that instead of tape.

My Family for years have used cloth bags that we just give back to each other. We made a bunch the first year and have added the odd one over the years. They are colourful, Christmasy and no waste at all.

My Family for years have used cloth bags that we just give back to each other. We made a bunch the first year and have added the odd one over the years. They are colourful, Christmasy and no waste at all.

And remember, most Christmas wrapping paper can be composted, so if one of your less-than-green relatives gave you something in 'normal' paper, and it was too covered in tape to reuse the paper next year, compost it!

Several brands of sticky tape will biodegrade too (ie sellotape) and if it doesn't, you'll be able to find it in the mature compost and take it out then.

So add the carbon to your soil... you know it makes sense!
'Compost' John in York, UK