My partner Sara insists I’m a hoarder. She says it’s a sickness.
Let’s face it. It may even be a curse.
During the holidays, however, my collections of buttons and beads, bottle caps and maps (what I prefer to call “collage-ables”) provide ready-made, gift-wrapping supplies—items I recycle, in the interest of friends and family, into gift wrapping with an urban edge.
Call it an extreme sport, if you will. I call it green-giving. I call it fun.
So today I’ll share a few more photos of my green, gift-wrapping efforts. Hope you enjoy.
The package below is wrapped with an English language newspaper I brought back from New Delhi. It also incorporates popsicle sticks, recycled ribbon, beads, buttons, painters’ tape, and more.
I packaged the next present, one for my nephew, in recycled pages from a Spider Man comic book.
This gift for my mother uses the label from a large can of tomato juice as wrapping, and the ornament on top is made from paper, buttons, beads, and tabs from coke cans.
And finally, some more packages I wrapped, using recycled maps. (To read my post on gift-wrapping with maps, click here.)
The bottom line is this–
You don’t need to spend lots of money on holiday gift wrapping. Instead, reuse what you already have around the house in creative ways.
Me? I’m dreaming of a green Christmas.
What‘s the strangest most creative gift wrapping you have ever used?
(Note: I will be doing more memoir posts after the holiday. If you are a new reader and you would like to look at some of my already-completed pieces about growing up with a mafia father, click here.)
Kathryn M. McCullough 
I love your gift wrapping! A green Christmas sounds like a great idea.
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Thanks, Deb. Glad you like the wrapping. Green is a Christmas color.
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You make me wish I had presents to wrap. Sigh.
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Oh, that’s perfect. Go buy something for Now Husband Dan. He’ll love the wrapping.
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I may have to shopping so I have something to wrap. 😉
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Go for it, Charles. It will be fun to make your Christmas a little greener.
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Jake keeps getting into our wrapped presents! Two days ago, he polished off most of a 30-pack of Ferraro Rochers. Yesterday, he decided he’d like to open Jim’s “Magic Bag”…he’s too short to reach the microwave to put it in!
Have a wonderful Christmas, Kathy!
Hugs,
Wendy
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Oh, the canines who manage to make our lives so interesting! Merry Christmas, Wendy–and hugs to you, as well!
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The problem with this is that I would never want to open the presents because the wrapping looks like little pieces of Kathy art. So, you could give me an empty box wrapped like this and I would be happy.
❤ Lisa
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People in my family tell me that all the time. The thing is, it’s just so fun to create these wrappings, it’s okay to destroy them. It’s like the sand mandalas that take so much time to create and are then blown away. Happy Hanukkah, Lisa===============
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u are not a hoarder my dear lady…. a hoarder would keep all that stuff with no desire to ever use it. Kudos to you for finding a great use for those old papers. 🙂
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Thank you, Mark. Wait till I tell Sara that! Hope you have less pain today than expected. Hugs to you, my friend–and Merry Christmas!
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I LOVE your recycled, creative gift wrapping ideas! This is fabulous!!!! I must try to initiate a similar type of holiday wrapping technique. I am crazy about recycling and recycle everything. But obviously there is much more I can be doing thanks to your posts on this. GREAT POST as always, Kathy!!!
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Oh, thanks, Nicole. I’m so glad you enjoyed the wrapping. I would have guessed you would, my friend–would have been a recycler, that is. Happy Holidays to you and your family!
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I hope you were able to use the outdated map I sent you in my package, Kathy! I had that mini atlas since the late 1980s, when Czechoslovakia was still a country. 🙂
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I’m actually saving it for an ornament. I don’t want to waste it on something that’s just going to be torn up. Maybe that’s silly. It might be that that makes me a hoarder–saving things like that for something “special.”
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Love it utterly. The maps make such cool wrapping! And the big tomato juice can is fabulous! It’s so much fun to bring out the “stash” and use stuff you’ve been saving forever. I love that feeling.
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I knew you would understand, Sandy! The tomato juice label is one of my favorites, as well. It just words so damn well. Thanks for taking a look, my equally creative friend!
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Weirdest Christmas wrapping ever? I had a tradition of stuffing something inside an empty Cheez-It box every year. Hey, in my defense, the box is mostly red – that’s pretty festive!
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It is pretty festive. What surprises me the most about this, however, is that being a foodie, you would consistently have Cheez-it boxes around——-but I guess it’s a kid thing.
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Your wrapping is beautiful! I love wrapping gifts. My step-dad used to pay .25 a package to wrap all of the family gifts, which I now look back and realize was child labor, but I enjoyed it anyway.
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I agree, Rae. There’s something very satisfying about it–all of the creasing and folding. Child labor or not–I would have done it, too. Happy Holidays, Rae. Thanks for taking a look!
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Who wouldn’t love to receive such an artistically wrapped package? This gives new meaning to wanting to save the wrapping paper!
As a kid, I remember wrapping gift is the Sunday comics. (Not all that uncommon, maybe.) But I also remember using aluminum foil a time or two.
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I don’t know why I didn’t think of the comics from the newspaper. That would have been fun to try and easier to work with than the pages from a comic book.
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So creative and beautiful, Kathy! It would be hard to open it and ruin the lovely wrapping.
I’ve used the Sunday color comic section of the newspaper to wrap gifts. Clearly it’s not as original as some of these great ideas here!
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Oh, Jackie, my family says that every year! It’s kind of a running joke. So glad to hear you like my wrapping. Happy holidays to you, my friend!
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My wrapping style is to slap it together at the last minute and hope it does not look too terribly hideous. For my Special Someone my friend, Coco, has been known to do the bow.
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I loved your post, V. Too, too funny–as I would have expected. (And thanks for the shout-out.) Happy holidays, my friend! How do I know I would love you in real life? You are the Oscar to my Felix!
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Who would have thought to use a can label. I’ve used material from old dresses, surplus party streamers, newspapers, and shells, etc. but never labels or maps or… Often I cheat and use wrapping paper and decorate that with stuff around the house. Not near as awesome as your creations!
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No, I think your ideas are great, but let’s face it. We all cheat sometimes. Too often there’s just not enough time to be creative, and we have to resort to more common wrapping techniques and materials. Thanks so much for reading. Hope you have a wonderful holiday.
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I’m so there. My current fav is the Shumway seed catalog, old timey on newsprint. With lots of Japanese masking tape. But you’ve given me lots more ideas!
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Wow, I love the idea of a seed catalog, and Japanese masking tape sounds terrific. But I have to admit, I’ve never even seen any. I’ll have to Google it and see what it looks like.
These are great suggestions. Hope you have a wonderful holiday. Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you’ll come again soon!
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Very creative, Kathy. Your idea is so original. I’d love to receive a gift wrapped by you. It would be a treasure I’d keep.
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So glad you like the wrappying, Maryanne. It’s fun to do this–sort of the icing on the cake of gift giving.
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Wishing you a wonderful holiday season.
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Happy holidays to you, too, my friend. Blessing to you in the new year, as well.
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I have been hoping that my family (in-laws) will be ok with newspaper wrapped presents tied up in red ribbons! I think I am going to bring this up sometime this holiday. And oh comic book as wrapping paper? Pretty sure my husband and kids and even my bro-in-law will think it’s awesome!
Merry Christmas!
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Hope your family appreciates your green efforts, Lin. Happy holidays to you.
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Oh how funny! (I accidentally typed “Ho how funny”) Just think how many ways we can create with the same Christmas song titles. I hope you had a wonderful day, Kathy! (Although I am thinking how often “wonderful” is mixed in with other emotions as well…)
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I know. It is “ho how funny.” Glad you made it home safely, Kathy. Great to hear from you!
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The only wrapping I’ve used outside of cartoon character paper (I’m a kid at heart) is brown paper that my kids decorated with stickers and drawings. I’m big on letting them loose with paper and crayons and markers to make homemade things. By the way, I only made twelve of the Christmas ornaments that you posted. I’ve got the sore finger tips to prove it. LOL
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ONLY 12! That’s a huge number. Believe me, I know. It takes a long time to make each one. Did you take photos of any of them? If so, I’d love to see some of your creations.
Also, I LOVE the idea of wrapping with kids drawings. What better wrapping could there be?
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I’ve decided the flattened bottle caps are my favourite, probably because they don’t appear at my house much. (Catching up yet again!)
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Great to hear from you, Rose. Hope you had a great holiday. Glad you like the bottle cap “bows.”
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