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3 Ways to Wrap Presents with Recycled Brown Paper

December 17, 2019 / 28 Comments

When it comes to wrapping presents, it can be extremely wasteful. Most wrapping paper cannot be recycled because most of it actually contains plastic. The rule of thumb is if it has glitter it cannot be recycled. Also, if it had bright inks it is hard for the paper to break down and be sorted. With that said, there are two options. You can either find other alternatives to wrapping paper or you try using recycled brown paper. Here are three ways you can wrap your presents in a semi eco-friendly way.

The Easiest Way: Gift Bags

These adorable, sparkly bags are from Paper Source. Paper Source not only partners with responsible, sustainable forestry mills but they also make their solid colored papers with at least 30% post-consumer waste. They also donate, reuse, and recycle all of their scrap paper so that it can get another chance at life. With that said, when you wrap presents this year you might want to consider using supplies from Paper Source. One of the easiest ways to wrap presents is to use a gift bag. Don’t worry about the tissue paper unless you feel like you really need it.

Give Old Gifted Bags a Second Life

As mentioned earlier, glitter on bags make it so that the bags cannot be recycled. So if you receive or give a gift bag, make sure it gets a second (or third or fourth) life. It is extremely silly to throw away a gift bag after one use when it can be used again and again.

The Crazy Way: Add Funky Stickers

If you read my post from Sunday, you know I’m obsessed with felt ornaments and decorations. With that said, I was over the moon when Anthropologie gave me these stickers after a few in-store purchases. They are such a fun way to add color to the brown paper. You can get the same stickers if you make a purchase in store or I found these similar ones online. You could probably also glue these stickers to paper as well. Another option is using string to tie the present in multiple different ways. That would be a funny way to see someone open the present.

The Creative: A Little Paint

A little ink and twine can go a long way when you wrap presents! I’ve had this idea for about two years now and I’m so glad I could finally bring it to life. These adorable stamps were found at Paper Source and the twine was purchased from an earlier project. The fun part about using stamps is that you can decide how much or how little pattern you want on your paper. I wrapped all of the boxes first and then put the ink on it. I highly recommend you let the ink set for 5-10 minutes before you touch or put the twine around the boxes. Another way to spice it up is to tuck a small pine tree branch underneath the twine.

Other Stamp Ideas:

  • Hearts
  • Stars
  • Christmas Trees
  • Christmas Lights
  • Ornaments

Cleaner Ways to Wrap Presents:

  • Cloth Wrapping
  • Using Trader Joe’s bags as the wrapping paper
  • Using newspaper or old crosswords as wrapping paper
  • Painting the box it came in
  • Using mason jars (what can’t you do with a mason jar)

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