Light Green Stairs

I’ve been thinking about this one quite a bit. I really love a cute gift bag, and just saw some old-fashioned Christmas bags made of kraft paper at Target. However, they weren’t made from recycled materials.

There’s always wrapsacs.com, subject of a post back in September. But how do you know the bag will really be passed on and not tossed? Plus, you are still buying something new just to cover a gift.

What about the days before wrapping paper? An architect I spoke with recently reminded me that we all used to be much more green by nature. We naturally made buildings more efficient before air conditioning and we used local building materials before FedEx, but that’s another story . . . .

When you look around at the things you throw away, or the things you recycle, how many of these items could help cover and decorate a gift?

One interesting idea is to use old maps (reuse!). If you don’t have any just sitting around, you can buy some reclaimed maps from Forest Saver Designs. It’s called MapWrap.

And, of course, you can use the comics if you get a Sunday paper. What about pages from a used 2007 calendar? A fashion collage made of catalog photos?

Don’t worry about how it will look. Just try it and you might be impressed and have a good time!

Also, there are all sorts of things in nature you can uses as tie-ons. A nice pine cone (without bugs). A spring from a cedar tree. Or maybe you want to pass on an ornament from your existing collection.

I don’t have any gifts to wrap yet, but when I try this, I will post a photo. Feel free to share any ideas you have.

And don’t forget to save delivery boxes for wrapping gifts!