Friday 24 February 2012

Reusable Gift Wrapping - Sophie

Having children has really opened my eyes to unnecessary packaging. As the years have gone by I've become more and more unhappy by the amount of rubbish we generate around birthdays and especially at Christmas, when it's not unusual for us to have 2 extra bags of rubbish just from wrapping paper and packaging. Over the past few years I've been trying really hard to find ways to decrease this.  Obviously you can limit unnecessary packaging by choosing your gifts carefully but wrapping needs a bit more thought. My favourite and easiest way of doing this is just to hold onto gift bags and recycle them.  They seem to get passed all around the family and come back again - I'm sure lots of people do this!  I have also started wrapping family gifts with fabric and ribbons. At Christmas we halved our usual rubbish by doing this. This week it was Gaby's birthday and it will be the second year I've used this cupcake fabric and although it did cost more to begin with, it was a nice feeling to get it out again and have nothing to throw away. I'm getting better at the wrapping now I think.....!


 It's a bit harder when it comes to gifts for friends. I think most people would find it a bit strange to be asked for their gift wrap back! I found a way to make the wrapping part of the present with this knitted face cloth pattern last year, so a couple of people ended up with these filled with soaps or bath bombs...


Here's the cloth 'unwrapped'...


....I really like this pattern.  It's enjoyable and easy to follow.  I've knitted 6 of these now and given them all away, I think it's about time I kept one, maybe it's a stash buster project for the future!


1 comment:

  1. I try hard to reuse wrapping too. We have lovely neighbours. Over the years, the same gift bags go back and forward. I do choose carefully which people I give reusable wrapping to. Not everyone understands. Hopefully they pass it on as well.

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