2012 Christmas Wrapping: Recycled Materials

I like to vary my wrapping a little bit each year. I think I must get this trait from my Mom, who seriously could be a professional present-wrapper if she wanted to, with perfectly tied bows and accessories and paper that never has any awkward creases or looseness around the box. She varies her wrapping theme each year--one year she did all of the wrapping and trimmings in shades of blue, silver and white, another year everything was holly leaves, and other year it was all red and white, much like a candy cane.



Last year I tried to wrap most of my gifts in natural wrapping, mostly of brown craft paper with accessories like fresh greenery, twine or raffia ribbon, and burlap as embellishments. It looked similar to the empty 'presents' I put outside on the bench in our front porch, as shown in this post. I really liked doing that and am sure to repeat the natural wrapping again, as it made everything so simple.



However, this year I thought I'd try something new and fresh, and decided on wrapping with old newspapers, using red or red and white ribbons as the finishing decoration.

I even made little 'flowers' out of the newspaper and pinned them to the box with a red-tipped straight-pin. We have so much trimmed greenery leftover from our tree that I may tuck some little sprigs of evergreen into the packages as well.

I shredded newspaper to use for stuffing when bags were required instead of boxes!

I really like how it turned out! So much so, that I'm tempted to do it every year just to save on wrapping materials. An added bonus is that it's the greener option too! I have quite a bit more wrapping to do, so I better get going :)

Happy wrapping,