Skip to main content

Compostable christmas wrapping and decorating!

Image
By
I have struggled with the waste for years at Christmas time and especially with the wrapping part. Now don't get me wrong - I absolutely love a well wrapped present. I have an Aunty who wraps presents wonderfully, so much so that I didn't want to open our wedding present but to just go on savouring the elegant bows and spray of orchid on the outside! It was truly a work of art!

Its more the amount of wrap that you can spend a fortune on that usually gets ripped and crushed beyond use in the rush to see whats inside. The wrap that I can save, I do save. This year I decided to try another option. Its free, environmentally friendly, upcycles a common waste problem and kinda funky to boot...

Here's what I did...

I wrapped my family presents in Newspaper!


I actually struggled with this as I wrapped the first one and then unwrapped it and got out the commercial stuff I have got for the people who may not appreciate my view on wrapping paper. Then I decided that of all people, my husband would be able to handle it and in hindsight, appreciate the thought of newspaper wrap - so I unwrapped it again and re wrapped it back in its newspaper.



I made a strip from the commercial paper and turned it into a bow. Attached a very quickly slapped together tag (with cotton string) and popped it under the tree. It doesn't look so bad you know!


I'm sure it will be a talking piece for visitors over the festive season and that works for me too!

On Christmas morning I can scoop the whole lot up and instruct a nearby body to sizz it all through the shredder and; Voila! Christmas flavoured paper for the compost and the worms! (making that the third use for that particular paper!)

Linked into Sustrainable Suburbia and their seasonal celebrations post! Have a look at what others doing.
http://sustainablesuburbia.net/simple-seasonal-goodness-celebrating-advent-with-a-difference/

Score card:
Green-ness: 5/5 for reusing a product in its waste phase!
Frugal-ness: 5/5 for making one $3 roll of paper co-ordinate all my pressies!
Time cost: The usual - less if you count not having to go back to the shops to get more paper - this paper gets delivered free of charge!!!
Skill level: More guts than skill I think (I mean what WILL the neighbours think?)
Fun -ness: It'll be fun to see the reactions I get!
Labels:
Reactions:

Comments

Kathryn Ray said…
When I was a kid, our presents were always wrapped in newspaper.

I would probably still wrap in newspaper, but we stopped receiving it about 2 years ago. Sometimes I miss having packing and wrapping at the ready.

I have been thinking a bit about vermicomposting... especially since we miss having the local paper.

Merry Christmas and who cares what the neighbors think. ;-)
13 December 2012 at 01:26
africanaussie said…
congratulations.... we do a Kris kringle so only have one present to wrap, plus of course one present for each of the grandkids. I don't see why the regular Christmas wrapping paper cant be composted? I might try that this year.
13 December 2012 at 09:54
Barbara Good said…
I too have struggled with the idea of all that waste. For a few years I wrapped my presents in tea towels fastening them with ribbon and pins if needed, but that got a little expensive. Now I use some of the mountains of artwork that makes its way home from childcare. They're always colourful in an abstract sort of way and are jazzed up nicely with a ribbon and bow. The family love getting these.
13 December 2012 at 20:40
Anonymous said…
I used to use newspaper, when we got a paper, and let my boys decorate them for each person. My family didn't appreciate the newspaper and complained loudly. I hope your family appreciates your efforts. Adding the extra touches with the holiday paper makes it look very festive.
14 December 2012 at 04:30
Kirsten McCulloch said…
I love it! I used to use the comics pages of the paper often (more colourful), but these days I mostly upcycle my kids paintings.

I love the idea of the strip of coloured paper coordinating them all though. That gives that extra sense of class that my pressies often don't have!

This would be a great post for my Simple Seasonal Goodness linky list over at SustainableSuburbia.net http://sustainablesuburbia.net/simple-seasonal-goodness-celebrating-advent-with-a-difference/ - I'd love you to pop over and add it :)
16 December 2012 at 12:15
Practical Frog said…
Now that Christmas is over I can say that it didn't make much difference to the day. Not one single person commented. I dont know why - maybe they expect this sort of thing from me and its so ordinary that there is no need to comment - maybe they didnt notice or it wasnt important to them to have presents in Christmas paper... Either way - the wrapping of Christmas presents in newspaper went TOTALLY unremarked! It all got shredded today (even the real Christmas paper)and went into the compost and to the worms. It saved me a few $ in wrapping paper and a bit of time buying it. It was easily available and so no problems to grab but other than making an environmental statement it made no difference to the day at all... I'll probably do it again next year! - K xx
26 December 2012 at 14:00
Post a Comment
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Popular posts from this blog

Killing cockroaches with boric acid v borax!

By
We live in Queensland. We have cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches! Why the NSW rugby team is called the Cockroaches is a mystery to me - surely ours are not only bigger but more plentiful??? At any rate, I don't like living with them (and I'm quite sure they  are not so fond of me at the moment!!) and I have been going through the usual gauntlet of sprays, solutions and bombs to get rid of them...

But I'm not so keen on the chemical aspect of all this spraying and bombing. I hate the smell and can almost feel disease and cancer growing in me every time I spray. I'm OK with the resident cockies getting a lungful of chemicals and then keeling over but I feel its impolite (and probably illegal) if my guests and family members do the same thing!!!

We went through a faze of killing them by hand (and flyswatter and rolled up newspaper and underfoot) but its hard and frustrating work and it probably was only culling the dumb and slow ones - leaving the smart fast ones to breed!!!

…
34 comments
Read more here!

What to do when your cat attacks a bird... and doesn't kill it.

By
We have an eight year old cat who we got as a stray about six years ago. The vet reckoned she was about two when we got her and we did all the right things and got her spayed and vaccinated and all that stuff. She loves people and no matter where you are in the house or garden, she will not be far away. She really good with kids and will put up with the squishiest cuddles and a far bit of toddler tail fascination before bolting out the door to escape. She is well fed (despite the look she is giving me and the empty bowl below...) but not fat - but still the  urge to hunt and subsequently kill still seems to be quite strong.


Last weekend, she pounced out of nowhere on a rainbow lorrikeet - thankfully my husband and a band of teenage boys were also there and managed to grab the bird before the cat had done more than pounce. Now we have a slightly mangled still alive but obviously unwell bird on our hands - what do you do?

Here's what we did...

We found a box - popped an old towel in t…
6 comments
Read more here!

Refilling old candle holders with new home made candles!

By
I had a number of nice wee candles that had burnt down to the bottom of their containers. They were too nice to throw away and I decided that I might be able to refill them with some more wax that I had lying around and use them again. Jumping straight in as I am apt to do.... I learnt a bit about candle making the hard way!

Here's what I did...


First I gathered up all my old wax. I scooped the wax out of old candles by either melting it for popping the whole container in the freezer for 10 minutes or so - most of the wax just popped out of its container after that!
I bought a length of candle wick from my local handcraft store. This was 6 meters and cost me $4.
I used the double boiler method of melting all my wax together. I used an old tuna can as I was only planning on filling four small candles. Don't let any water boil over into your wax. It will make your candles go funny...
I gently stirred the wax as it melted.
I measured the depth of the candle holders and then doub…
3 comments
Read more here!