Getting Creative with Holiday Gift Wrap

Instead of buying wrapping paper this holiday season, why not take advantage of all the materials around your house that can be put to good repurposing use?  How many decorative tins, fabric scraps, and old maps do you have stored away?

End-of-the-year gifting is one of the best ways to incorporate materials that you don’t really use into meaningful and inventive extensions of the gifts that you give.  Here are a few ideas to get you started . . .

• Wash and dry an old flower pot that will accommodate the size of your gift.  Cover the top with pretty scarf or fabric remnant and secure it with string or ribbon.

• Wrap your present in a tablecloth you’ve had in a bottom drawer for years, or for multiple small gifts, wrap them individually in a set of cloth napkins.

• Have you been saving your old calendars for years, thinking them too pretty to just toss out?  Now is the time to reuse them to adorn your gifts.

• Do you have a collection of scraps of gently used wrapping paper, but none of the pieces are large enough for the presents you want to wrap?  Why not piece them together and make a beautiful giftwrap mosaic?

• Have you run out of room on the fridge and the walls for your kids’ artwork?  Christmas is a great time to share your child’s prolific artistic talent with others who can also appreciate it by reusing it to wrap a special gift that will not soon be forgotten.