I have noticed this one is getting a lot of attention recently and rightly so, after all it is nearly Christmas. Now I am sure you are all very organized like me and have bought and wrapped all your presents, right? (Cue nervous laughter).
Well listen up anyway because wrapping is for life not just Christmas.
I will give you all the ‘why’ first, most wrapping paper can not be recycled! So just sit and think for a minute all the paper you have pointlessly put in your recycle bin over the years, take a deep breath and read on. If the paper contains foil or glitter, it can’t be recycled, the best way to test is to scrunch it, if it stays scrunched then it can be recycled, if it unfolds it can’t, simples. The other main issue is that the paper that can be recycled won’t be recycled unless you remove ALL the sellotape. Now personally I don’t have time to sit and pull tape off all the paper at Christmas, I have a five year old, there is a lot of paper.
I started thinking about wrapping paper a few months ago when my daughter seemed to be going to a lot of kids birthday parties, so I figured I would try out a few different things on the odd birthday present first to get ready for the intensity that is wrapping all the Christmas presents.
So I started with the obvious one, brown paper. This isn’t as easy as you think, for starters it is not as readily available as normal wrapping paper, it is boring by nature but most annoyingly it comes wrapped in plastic. Yes, I am yet to find a roll of brown paper that does not come wrapped in plastic, I understand it needs protecting when being transported, stored etc. but seriously why not wrap it in, hmm maybe, paper? Just a thought. I did see separate sheets of brown paper but that really isn’t going to cover much. So I turned to trusty old Hobby Craft and so far they have been the most cost effective in regards to how big the roll is versus price compared to other shops I have seen it in. I haven’t researched or bought any off the internet yet as I have only just ran out of the three rolls I originally purchased. But I have been keeping my eyes peeled in shops and spotted it in Tesco and JTF, but their rolls were tiny and still wrapped in plastic.
So I am asking you lot for some help, where should I turn to for replenishing my stock? Baring in mind I would prefer it to be paper that has already been recycled, not wrapped or posted in plastic, without a crazy delivery cost, ideally local (Newcastle/North East) and definitely not made using any chemical nasties? Please comment if such a thing exists but just not being wrapped in plastic would be a good start.
Above is my first effort, and I say effort because it does take longer to make it look pretty when you can’t just rely on a pre-patterned paper. At this point I knew I didn’t want to use sellotape, as it is the devil. So I used a non toxic glue stick, which worked well but it was a simple item to wrap and nice and flat, I had also purchased some twine, plain brown labels, stamps and non toxic ink (all Hobby Craft).
I was quite happy with the results and the best bit was my daughter enjoyed using the stamps so it turned into a bit of a craft session too.
A glue stick and twine didn’t feel overly practical though so I began looking for a sellotape alternative and I found paper tape was the next best option. I ordered some from Plastic Phobia who I have mentioned before because their delivery cost is reasonable, they can trace the full journey of their products and they do carbon offsetting for their deliveries. They sell the paper tape in packs of two and I am yet to finish a full roll and I have used it a lot.
This paper tape isn’t as sticky as sellotape, however it is really easy to use because you can just tear it off (no teeth or scissors needed) and it is perfect for brown paper and you don’t need to remove it before it goes in the recycling. However I didn’t think the torn off pieces looked that nice so I started cutting pieces using my pinking shears to give it a pretty edge, I know that is taking it a bit far but I like it to look neat, I also did it a bit when cutting the paper but that added quite a lot of time so stopped doing that.
As you can see the photo above I also branched out paper wise for Christmas, I managed to find some paper from Ikea that specifically stated it could be recycled but it has some pretty prints on, but subtle, which I like. I also had to buy some paper that my daughter would think Santa would use, she may only be five years old but she would totally be suspicious if all of a sudden Santa had gone all eco just like Mammy. Although she does believe I have his e-mail address and let him know the cheapest places to buy her presents, so he can save his money and buy more presents for the other boys and girls.
I am also the kind of person who keeps odd bit of ribbons and string from previous presents, cakes and that kind of thing so I used my stash to make things a bit more interesting instead of just twine on them all.
This is a great way to re-use something that a lot of people would bin. See photo below, I put the cardboard label in the recycling and used the cotton ribbon to wrap a present. No landfill needed.
Now if you are feeling a bit more creative I also started trying Furoshiki, which is a traditional Japanese way of wrapping things in fabric. I had a load of step by step guides saved on Pinterest and it took a while to get my head around it but it is now my new favorite thing, I need to work on it a bit more ready for next year.
It also works best with large square pieces of material so I will be on the look out for nice pashminas and snoods in charity shops. I like the idea of a present being wrapped in another present. And for people who you think would like to pass on the material when they wrap some one else’s present, then print off the instructions and include them in the gift. I had the idea of using cotton Christmas tea towels to wrap presents and this worked quite well for some items but they aren’t really big enough to work well and I think it would be expensive for me to find sustainable cotton and organic Christmas tea towels which is what I should really use. My favourite one I did was two large ale bottles wrapped in to two tea towels that made it into a carrier too, I didn’t get a photo of that one so tried to re-create with wine bottles see below.
So I now have a mixture of presents wrapped in many ways and I actually enjoyed the experimentation and have a plan that will probably bubble away all year and culminate in a total hybrid next Christmas.
And that’s a wrap (sorry couldn’t resist).
Eco Lass 