Did you know that there is a 25% increase in the amount of garbage we dispose of around the holidays? And most of it is packaging and wrapping paper. According to an article in The Atlantic (12/22/12) we spend $2.6 billion annually on wrapping paper. Wasteful!
Cloth wrapping has been used in traditional cultures for over 1,200 years and is still used today by many wise parents. Furoshiki is the ancient art of cloth wrapping from Japan which is elegant, practical and eco-friendly. In Korea it's called Bojagi and is often silk or hemp patchwork cloth.
Another advantage is that different shaped gifts are easier to wrap with cloth. Here are some ideas:
We love how simple and beautiful cloth wrap is. And your wrapping becomes another gift or can be used year after year.
Playsilks are especially beautiful as wrapping because of how luminescent and shiny the colors are. Plus, after the gifts are open the children can play with them!
Our starter set of silk wrappings is available here.
Leave a comment about your ideas for reusable gift wrapping below and enter to win a Holiday Gift Wrap Set!
Two winners will be chosen 11/14/18.
What a lovely idea. We just had a birthday with so.much.wasted.paper and I would love to change things up for Christmas this year. I’ve been wanting to get playsilks for my daughter, too.
Jean on
Fabric pieces and bags decorated by the kids.
Christa on
Love this idea! And have used it before! It really makes for a Beautiful and Stunning gift! I always save tissue ans wrapping and bags from gifts given to us! There is always a need to reuse! Even as packaging for when moving fragile things-thank you :)
Julie Ann on
We also re-use grocery bags and the kids paint on them or draw on them or decorate with plant based dyes, dried flowers, etc. This makes for a wonderful and unique gift in of itself. My children wrap gifts for one another in playsilks and have been doing this forever. They also use towels and sheets for large things adding beautiful natural bows/ribbons for decoration at times.
dani on
So much prettier than gift bags!
Rebecca Brams on
We use reusable decorative tins for some of our gifts. I just bought our first playsilks for this year and plan to wrap the Santa gifts in them.
Susan on
Yet another way to teach children to be creative! What a fun family activity it would be to wrap gifts together while learning some new knots.
Alisha on
Especially for baby or bridal showers, I love to create a basket full of goodies – I think my favorite was in a laundry basket, and had sheets and towels for wrapping and padding of the fun housewarming essentials! For Christmas and birthdays, we often reuse gift bags – with five kids and dozens of cousins, we would otherwise go crazy with wrapping paper and tape!
Barbara Lapointe on
I love using kitchen towels to wrap food and baking-themed gifts, and when I can find the time, I enjoy sewing totes and drawstring bags to use as gift wrapping
Heidi A on
My kids already LOVE to use our two playsilks as gift wrap and I’ve bern wanting to expand our collection. I’m notorious in my family for preserving wrapping materials to reuse, and this would make that even easier!
Danielle on
Love this idea! When I gift wrap for gifts outside the house I use brown paper bags leftover that I have from the store and wrap it with some twine. It looks simple and clean!
Hana Lubbers on
When giving gifts outside of our home, I’ll use printed fabric pieces, brown paper we have from occasional groceries or newspaper, depending on what I got around and always top with a nice reusable ribbon, and when gifting inside our home such as kids’ birthdays, we always use the playsilk that we got in the past.
Svetlana on