Wednesday, November 16, 2011

how to gift wrap: recycled and handmade ideas

i'm always looking for new ideas on how to gift wrap my christmas and holiday presents, especially diy and handmade ideas that involve recycled or upcycled materials. every year, since I fly home for the holidays, all of my gifts get wrapped post-flight while I'm sitting around my parent's house and generally in a very crafty (aka stir-crazy) mood. as a result, my gift wrapping gets very creative and sometimes very bizarre (my gift tags are never directly addressed....they are always from fictitious characters, and figuring out the recipient usually includes some sort of riddle or guessing game). I try to only use things that I find laying around my parent's house to wrap things, but still try to keep things pretty. And over the years, I've come across many online tutorials to help spark my creative wrapping.

generally, my presents are wrapped with the only 2 large scale paper-ish items that I have laying around the house -- kraft paper and tin foil. i'm a kraft paper addict and always have at least 5 rolls on hand. you never know when you're going to need it. tin foil makes unusually sparkly wrapped gifts!

these plastic bag pom poms are genius! this completely fantastic bow is made from.....a regular ole plastic shopper bag that you get from the grocery store (!!) i have a ton of these piling up and this is an excellent way to recycle them. they look amazing (and goes great with kraft paper.).

how to gift wrap red and white bakers twine

tie it all together with beautiful red and white bakers twine (above). ........and a few more of my favorite upcycled gift wrapping ideas include this bow tutorial from a magazine page is so, so clever and pretty! (via How About Orange). Jess also makes these mini-bags, made from an envelope and covered it beautiful tape. also one of the most adorable things i've ever seen!

how to make a gift bow recycled handmade gift bags handmade gift tags
And finally, Ed Emberley has the most ADORABLE website on how to turn your thumbprint into a cute little creature. Design*Sponge steps it up a notch and uses them to make your own tags.

9 comments:

Loren said...

I really like that tag in the last photo. I had that book about 'thumbprint' animals when I was little! These are some lovely ideas. I'm a recycled brown paper + twine wrapper normally I'll have to add a few of these ideas to my repertoire.

Anonymous said...

This is a fun post. I like your fictitious characters idea, that sounds like something I'd like to do (in this house some gifts are from Santa, that's all).

Sometimes I like buying plain brown paper and I ask my kids to decorate it ... that also keeps them busy, which can be very helpful when I need time to do something else ;-)

Nnenna said...

The grocery bag is so cute! I love that you can take an ordinary item like that and make it into pretty wrapping. Also, the red and white twine is just adorable =)

star-crossed smile

Kailey said...

Wonderful post! I absolutely love wrapping presents, so this post is definitely up my alley! I like to sign the "from" section as celebrities ^^

Anonymous said...

That thumbprint owl tag is absolutely adorable. So simple and so very perfect. I dig a good craft-tivity that lets you get your hands dirty!

jessica // union shore said...

these are such great ideas!! i love cute packaging!

Miss Val's Creations said...

Great ideas! I love when I can re-purpose something that is otherwise trash. The bag pom pom idea is so cool! I use old yarn I have in place of ribbons on gifts. ~Val

Jessi said...

Oh I love the butcher's twine! i need to get some for this Christmasr

Georgia said...

super cute packaging :)
-Georgia

http://swonderfulgd.blogspot.com/