To boycott wrapping paper this Christmas ?

[MostlyAmbridgeandcoffee]

It’s terrible for the environment and completely pointless ! Who’s with me? Old newspaper or pretty reusable cloth instead? My little one turned 1 this weekend and the cardboard and wrapping paper rubbish at the end of it all made me feel a bit ill! Does anyone do this already and have any tips ?

Brown paper with potato painting stamps - I can't remember the word.

How about Organza Fabric Blue

I used lots of fabric last year (scraps and old curtains/pillow cases) some people have used them again themselves some returned them to me to use again. I also use brown paper too and let the dcs draw on it with colouring pencils to decorate. Instead of sellotape I use string. Also reuse gift bags we are given

I’ve bought loads of patterned scarves from charity shops as I’ve seen them throughout the year. I’ll cut them to size/sew two together depending on size of present and tie with ribbon
Great idea

DS has his birthday soon so DD and I will decorate some brown paper for his presents. She'll love that. I'll buy some nice ribbon too to resuse.

A friend of mine uses brown wrapping paper which she hand stamps with Christmassy things. It looks lovely. I am going to try this - perhaps adding twine and bits of holly.

Brown paper and reuseable ribbon this year for us. I use different colours for each group of presents so it makes it easier to find under the tree.

My dads tip is to scrunch wrapping paper up. If it stats scrunched its recyclable. If os bounces back a bit its got plastic in and wont be recycled. Obviously glitter and metallic details are not recyclable.

Next time save the paper from her gifts. Have been saving and reusing paper/gift bags for years and would recommend it.

@MinervaVause organza sounds great! Thanks for the idea.

Bluewavescrashing

We do hampers at school, we now take a photo of what is in the hamper, wrap it in a nice tablecloth and put a picture on the hamper.

Does that make sense?
I need a fairtrade coffee

Oh yes: we go through the years Christmas cards when taking down and cut off fronts of any that make good tags and store in the Christmas Box: these plus plain white card with Christmassy stamps for gift tags. Holepunching gift tags is the dcs favourite Christmas chore ;-)

When mine were little. We always put together and set up large toys( train sets ect)
So when they came down they were ready to use.
Things went in stockings un wrapped.
So very little paper was used.

I have bulk bought some cotton shopping bags and some ribbon and I plan to use them to wrap, I know the bags themselves take a lot of production but hopefully they will be used for shopping by the receivers too. I thought about printing them Christmassy but that makes it less likely they will be used so hopefully the ribbon will be decoration enough.

Blue don't buy cheap organza. It'll be made of polyester.

I keep planning to make a set of reusable fabric bags - a bit like the Amazon gift bags if anyone has ever had a wrapped present delivered? The only thing stopping me is that I think the number of bags and sizes needs to be carefully thought about so as to be properly reusable, as otherwise they're no better for the environment (and, depending on fabric used, probably worse?).

Brown paper and cut up over Xmas cards from the year before to make pretty tags

Blue how about muslin / lawn type fabrics. Or silk.

@OddBoots I love the cloth shopping bag idea! I’ll be nabbing that.

but surely non-glittery, non-metallic wrapping paper is recyclable?

I always make my tags from last year's cards, one of my favourite festive things to do!

No I would never give a gift if it wasn't wrapped. Loads of places sell recyclable wrapping paper.

I've bought a few pairs of dungarees recently from Lucy and Yak. They come in a compostable pack and inside the clothes are wrapped in a bag made from a sari. Lovely idea and I've kept them to reuse for present wrapping.

Nostalgia of childhood now, saving wrapping papers of all kinds. I used to happily cut up all the old Xmas cards to for tags the following year! How things changed. Yes also thanks for highlighting this MostlyAmbridgeandcoffee Will watch this thread with interest

Chloe although I do it myself now, I actually hated always having to reuse the same old, rather grubby paper, for the 5th time (my parents weren't especially environmentally minded, but they had a very wartime mentality to waste, which amounts to the same thing).

When I left home I loved going to WHSmith and buying lovely new wrapping paper.

Fab hamper ideas, thanks. I'll avoid organza.

Hopefully the non wrapping paper trend will catch on as people give presents wrapped in alternatives to others outside their family. I like the idea a lot. Last Christmas I made my MIL take home the mountains of non recyclable wrapping paper and toy packaging from her very generous but OTT presents to our DC. I thanked her for the gists but told her bluntly I didn't want it clogging up my already full bin. She cheerfully obliged but I'm sure we'll go through the same rigmarole this year. Ah well.

I like the cloth shopping bag idea, but I do think there's a good chance most people will simply put them in their already quite large stock of reusable bags and they end up surplus to requirements. I think present bags probably get reused the most - they get passed on multiple times, especially if no one ever writes on the label.