Sustainable Holiday Gift Wrapping

Have you started shopping for gifts yet? I am totally guilty of holiday shopping way too early, I've actually been hanging onto a gift for my sister since September. While I tend to daydream of matching wrapping paper perfectly tucked around the corners of gifts under a well-ornamented tree-- my reality is newspaper and reused paper bags.

Reusing what I can to wrap presents saves me a lot. A lot of time, effort, money and peace of mind. After all, my nieces and nephew are going to tear into the gift just as harshly whether it has yesterdays news or a reindeer printed on it. If you're looking to make your holidays more eco friendly, follow my tips for sustainable gift wrapping.

Newspaper Wrapping

2020 was the first year that I wrapped my gifts with newspaper and I was honestly terrified what people would think. I was worried that my Christmas wouldn't look picture perfect, but what I found was that I spent less money, less time cutting and the paper was more durable.

I even had some friends look at my pile of gifts and laugh because they forgot newspapers were even a thing. Everyone I gave a gift to loved the wrapping and my hand drawn name tag and decorations. Since newspapers are folded into squares, I just ripped gently along the lines and each square perfectly wrapped my gifts.

Jewelry Bags

Throughout the year I manage to collect tens of these little baggies. From jewelry I bought, gifts from friends and when buying crystals from my local mystical shop. Since I accumulate all of these bags for free, it is fairly easy for me to toss them into a gift to hold something small that I can't wrap.

This year I am using these bags to hold some toys for my cat, my sisters cat and my moms. Don't worry though, the cats have much better things to do than read my blog so they'll never know.

Store Bags

I shop a lot, for myself mainly, and sometimes for others. This leaves me with a lot of sturdy and pretty store bags that could have a much better life than living in my recycling bin. This year I have a mixture of Anthropologie, H&M and Sephora bags holding non-related gifts.

I used to buy gift bags that matched the color scheme of the gift, or coordinating gift bags in different sizes. Honestly, this was entirely too hard to keep up with and I don't even want to think about how much money I wasted on bags.

Stickers as Tape

Okay, I'll admit it. This was a discovery I made out of pure laziness and eagerness to wrap my presents. I didn't have any tape on hand and it was too cold to go to the store (it's snowing already!) so I dug out a collection of stickers I will never use to act as tape.

Now that I think about it, this is actually a great idea. I collect so many stickers by accident between random Etsy shops gifting me them or finding them at local coffee shops. Since they just live in my drawer, I finally found a use for them.

These are the sustainable gift ideas I have found so far this year. I'm excited to see how creative I can get in years to come with saving money and resources while wrapping up my amazing (my opinion) gifts. Let me know below your tips for making the holidays more sustainable.