Introduction: Creative, Free, and Recycled Ideas for Gift Wrapping
Step 1: Potatoes and a Brown Paper Bag
Get out a potato, cut it in half. With a marker, cut a simple shape onto the potato. With an exacto knife, carefully cut away the negative parts of your shape. And, you have a potato stamp!
Take out an old paper bag, open up the bottom, and cut it down the sides so it lays flat.
Get out some acrylic paint and brush it onto your stamp. Press the stamp firmly to your paper and repeat until you are happy with the look.
Wait for it to dry, then wrap up the gift!
Just cut out a little rectangle for a card, and you're done!
Step 2: Old Basket
Take out a magazine you've already read and cut the whole thing into strips.
Stuff the bottom of the basket with the strips and start adding stuff.
You can even use pages from a fashion magazine to wrap up small gifts, then add some cheese, a few sprigs of lavender, and a little bow!
Step 3: Old Sewing Pattern
If you have a large awkward-shaped gift to wrap, use an old sewing pattern!
If you want a matching decoration, check out Youtube user Natural Mindset's tute for using old patterns to make pom-poms.
Step 4: Old Music Book
Using an old music book, rip out and roll up a couple pages and tie with a ribbon. Add one to each of your gifts as decoration!
Step 5: Some Other Recycled Wrapping Options
Other options include:
Old maps
The Sunday funnies
Old comic books
Scrap fabric
Astroturf
Have fun knowing you're saving money and the environment!
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9 Comments
5 years ago
Just plain potatoes work too, and you can use ink instead of paint...think of markers.
I love the pattern one!
5 years ago
It is a sweet potato, and yes it is different from something we call potato (without the word "sweet") and it is also what some people call a yam.
11 years ago on Introduction
THATS A YAM NOT A POTATO!
or at least i think it is
maybe its a sweet potato
is ther a difference?
11 years ago on Introduction
Congratulations guys, on some very kool, creative, & earth-friendly ideas! FANTASTIC production on the vid, too! Kudos to you, & thanx for posting! :)
11 years ago on Introduction
These are some great ideas. I don't really get the rolled up music book pages as a decoration thing though. You could cut it or tear it into smaller pieces and put a blank label to make them gift tags. Or use them to wrap smaller gifts.
13 years ago on Introduction
i loved the potato thing!
13 years ago on Introduction
Like the astroturf, would feel bad destroying a comic to wrap a present. You could however scan and print the comic to save destroying the original. To add to the list in step five, in my youth (not so very long ago) I had a friend who would wrap presents in pages from erm.... gentleman's magazines.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
hehe... "gentleman's magazines".......
13 years ago on Introduction
This off the cuff thinking is awesome. Great job with your photos and your documentation.