Tip submitted by reader, Deborah:
One of our favorite holiday traditions is to make our own wrapping
paper. We collect all our paper bags which have piled up over the year, cut them open, and decorate the blank side. The kids love
decorating and giving presents in their special paper. And we save money by not having to buy wrapping paper!
paper. We collect all our paper bags which have piled up over the year, cut them open, and decorate the blank side. The kids love
decorating and giving presents in their special paper. And we save money by not having to buy wrapping paper!
Have a simple and frugal Christmas tip? Email it to me, along with pictures, and I might feature it here in the next few weeks!
Oh, I have been saving the Sunday Comics all year, you can’t beat the classic recycling of the funnies into wrapping paper.
I have coffee cans, chili cans, Coffee Mate canisters with with flip lid, frosting containers, Sweet Sue Chicken cans and Gerber Puffs canisters washed and dried. Now I just have to paint and decorate them for this:
~3 Teachers get : coffee can- choc covered pretzels, Coffee Mate Canister- hot cocoa, chili cans- banana bread, Puffs canister- Snowballs cookies (aka Texas Tea Cakes/ Mexican Wedding Cookies) all packaged in Dairy Queen drink holders with festive ribbons and the canisters decorated as Snowmen or reindeer.
~Principle, Nurse, and Librarian get deep dish pies in Sweet Sue chicken cans- with tags “your sweet as pie and twice as nice”
~The secretaries and the counselor get Reindeer Poo aka Choc. cream cheese truffles in the icing/frosting containers decorated to look like reindeer heads with their hands as antlers.
~Gaelynn’s UIL sponsor and My mom (ISS teacher) get some form of chocolate goody in spaghetti jars wrapped with ribbon.
I have stopped buying wrapping paper ever since I learnt that the paper cannot be recycled. I get gift bags which can be reused or use foil when items are small. Brown paper with pretty ribbons are great too. I am currently eyeing some fabric wrappers which are so attractive!
My kids love to do this for our homemade gifts! We use any scrap paper we can find. I also buy most of my other wrapping paper at 90% after christmas. I have over 40 rolls and paid less than $10. I make sure to buy plain and solid colors to use for birthdays and anniversary too!
I’ve been using my MANY $5 Hallmark coupons to get some very nice wrapping paper at a fraction of the cost: 2 rolls for $1.40 (including tax).
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS. THIS IS A GREAT CRAFTY IDEA TO DO WITH THE KIDS. WONDERFUL! THANKS!!! 😉
I work at a newspaper and get free unprinted news print paper (most newspapers will give any subsriber 2 rolls free to use for packing boxes). We use paint and had my son walk all over the paper and do handprints. VERY interesting to see how much his hand has grown. Also you can make individual ones and laminate to use as labels.
We did this one year, wrinkled the bags first, then we used apples cut opposite normal so that they made a star stamp. We then tied the presents with raffia and they looked so cool…
this year the hallmark coupon made the paper so cheap….that is what we are using! 🙂
This is fun for kids to do, frugal, and is a great way to recycle, but I wouldn’t call it simple! I think it’s simpler to just buy it on clearance in January!
We do this too! My husband’s birthday was the 2nd and I didn’t want to use christmas paper to wrap his gift. Instead I put the kids in nothing but diapers and let them use washable paint to create designs on paper bags! It was great! My husband even kept the paper!!!
some newspapers will give away ream remnants, which is great for wrapping paper too!
We did this one year. We didn’t normally have plastic bags. Those are harder to carry since they don’t have handles. Funnies work too. We used to do that a lot growing up.
Nowadays, since we get plastic bags when we forget our reusables, and since we don’t get the paper, we just buy wrapping paper a year ahead on clearance. That or the dollar store. We have a dozen at most gifts to wrap so it doesn’t cost much.
So cute! We used to do that and my mom would cut potatoes into different shapes to use as stamps.
Thanks! This is a great idea. I’ve been saving the funnies from the newspaper but I know I don’t have enough. My son will love this.
I buy all of my wrapping paper AFTER Christmas. I still pay for it, but it’s at a STEEP discount.
We love making wrapping paper, too. We also make handmade gift bows from magazine pages to decorate our gifts.
http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/2009/12/homemade-gift-bows.html
We use the comics from the Sunday paper.
Another great, easy recycling idea is to save all the kids’ disposable artwork throughout the year, and shred it to to use in gift baskets. We fold ours like a fan first, so it turns into “crinkle” paper. It is fun and festive and people get a kick out of it.