Environmentally Friendly Wrapping

[truthlemon]

I usually reuse all my ribbons etc and have bought non-glitter wrapping for a few years....but now I'm thinking of making the switch to Kraft paper and twine. Has anyone bulk bought brown paper and twine? Any recommendations?

Also, has anyone used Kraft tape instead of Sellotape? I think it might be called decorator's tape. too. Is it sticky enough to wrap with?

TIA

I’m going for biodegradable raffia ribbon, something like this
www.transpack.co.uk/gift-display/ribbon/paper-raffia-ribbon
They do coloured paper too
www.transpack.co.uk/gift-display/coloured-kraft-wrapping-paper
However I know our recycling teams take wrapping paper out of people recycling so not sure if I should just use brown.
I hadn’t thought about tape.

I know Wilko sell kraft paper quite cheaply. Have you thought about using old newspaper?

I did kraft paper with potato prints a couple of years ago and I'm doing it again this year. Pritt stick to seal ends and raffia to tie work well.

Great ideas, thank you. Pritt Stick is a good shout.

Old newspaper would look great, but we don't buy them enough. Post-children newspapers are few and far between!

Will check out transpack too!

I think my Kraft paper roll is just from Sainsburys or somewhere similar.

I tend to wrap without sellotape at all if it’s a nice cuboid shape. Just fold neatly and then tie ribbon nice and tightly. Gives me more chance of being able to salvage the paper to reuse, plus I hate all the cutting and sticking bit of tape.

Last year I spent ages trying to get the kids to help me make Christmas boxes out of scraps of old wrapping paper covering shoe boxes but it took ages and to be frank looked a bit crap so my plan to reuse them for years and years doesn’t look like a go-er.

More successfully, I invested in some very pretty gift bags for putting in presents that my sisters had ordered online and had sent straight to us - I think these should last a few years and much easier to reuse (and to prepare!) than paper.

My mum sent all her presents in old newspaper last year. It looked quite cute. Have to be a bit careful about what news stories are on there if you have reading age children though!

I sew my own wrapper

One year I put everyone's presents in £1 hessian carrier bags, tied up with different coloured wools and pom poms.
Another year I did newspaper and string, with real holly and ivy, although I did spray a bit of gold and silver on the paper.
I save nice boxes and paint them, sometimes with stencils or stamps.
I save all paper, tissue, bows and embellishments I can, and reuse.

Some very creative ideas! We buy gifts for more than 30 people (not including the DC and DH) so as much as I'd like to put in more effort, I just never have the time nor the inclination after buying all the pressies.

Thinking a foolproof plain old wrapping of brown paper is the way I'll go. A poster on the Christmas Bargains thread did mention that Dunelm have some patterned recyclable paper this year, see here

I’ve only used craft paper for 15 years - it’s brilliant and you can use it for every occasion. I just change the colour of ribbons or embellishments - a sprig of pine, a nice feather, that sort of thing.

I’ve used ordinary jute garden twine, usually picked up on clearance around this time of year. I added picks of greenery and brown packing labels and it looked lovely but then the picks dried and dropped needles so I wasn’t too popular I’ve done similar with cinnamon sticks (lidl craft section) and home dried orange slices with cloves, and that lasted a bit better.