Last year, I bought – no word of a lie – about 15 rolls of wrapping paper. Can you imagine the guilt I felt when I realised how much damage wrapping paper causes the environment?
I bought several Matalan wrapping box sets and wrapped my gifts in super creative way – adorning them with baubles or origami folds.
They did look gorgeous – if I do say so myself – and I was roped into wrapping for every Tom, Dick and Harry in a five mile radius.
This year, I’m cutting right back on Christmas waste and wrapping in a far more eco-friendly, and frankly, ironic way.
Each morning when I get into work, I pick up the daily paper and plonk it on my desk to flick through whilst I have my first cup of tea (and three custard creams) of the day. I fold it away in my laptop case and bring it home. Mum intends to make a scrapbook filled with my articles in the paper one day.
On an average day, I have two or three articles in the newspaper, and the rest gets put into the recycling bin. Instead, I’ve been saving the paper and wrapping my Christmas presents with it! I thought it was a really cool and quirky idea, and since I’m a journalist, it reflects me and my personality to a tee.
It’s far friendlier on the environment, and has a bit of a vintage feel to it, like when fish and chips used to come wrapped in it.
However, I know that the ink is really bad for transferring, so I can’t wrap up gifts that the newspaper will ruin – like clothes. So, for these, I’ve mostly used brown paper. Again, it’s far more sustainable than conventional wrapping paper.
I’ve jazzed up their look with different ribbons and adorned them with baubles. These were mostly from Sainsbury’s 3 for 2 range. I’ve kept a traditional colour scheme, with reds, greens and navys, and I think it’s given them more of a festive feel.
For those extra special gifts – you know the ones – the present you’re smug about because you know they’ll really appreciate it? I have bought ONE roll of gold foil leopard print wrapping paper to wrap these in. Things tend to look better in threes, so it means I have three different kinds of wrap.
I actually bought this to use in blog photos, so will be using the rest of the roll in flatlays and product photos. It makes me feel better knowing I’ll get more than one use out of it.
In terms of tags, for the most part I’ve used a rubber stamp and ink set to print names onto the brown paper or newspaper. Others, I’ve used small white luggage tags, or popped them in a bag with their name on!
How are you wrapping your gifts this year?
