ok so i’m not the most eco-conscious person in the world and i’m not going to pretend i am, butttt i have been making an effort and making little changes and swaps when i can. this year i’ve realized how wasteful wrapping paper is, and it’s so sad because i LOVE IT and i am passionate about beautiful gift wrap– but the fact that you just use it once and toss it just feels so whatever the opposite of green is.

SO– i decided this year i would use only gift boxes and packaging i already had. i bought a big variety of kraft gift boxes in since i can reuse them over and over, as well as tissue paper to fill them with. i got half sheets which actually are so much better because normal tissue paper pieces are so giant and they always end up ripping!!

i collect cute ribbons and gift toppers/adornments whenever i get them through the year, so i had a bunch of stuff to use but i also purchased a few ribbons. again, these can be used over and over, and i don’t even think it matters if they’re not the exact person length for the gift. who cares!!

most of the toys we buy for arlo are too large for gift boxes, so i had to wrap almost all his gifts. to use grocery bags as wrapping paper, you just cut all the way down from the side to the bottom and turn inside out. and for super large gifts, i just used large shoe bags that i always save for travel.

i also had a bunch of kraft and white packaging paper from ordering gifts online, so i had plenty to use for all my gifts. most of these are pretty wrinkly which i considered trying to iron out somehow, but i decided with enough ribbon and pretty gift toppers you wouldn’t even notice the wrinkles.

to adorn the gifts, i used a LOT of dried orange slices, cinnamon sticks, feathers, and little cedar clippings. i don’t think you can be too heavy handed with the gift toppers but that might just be me haha. (ps i attempted to dry my own orange slices but it didn’t work out for me (my dumb oven doesn’t go low enough!!) so i just bought a big bag instead lol don’t judge)

for the gift tags, i would normally use my own (SO MANY OPTIONS ON THE BLOG) but my printer is currently out of ink and so in an effort to stay even more low waste, i just used more of the packaging paper with a hole punch. super simple! i also own these stickers which are really simple and pretty.

i hope this inspires your present wrapping! i’m sorry i didn’t post this sooner, but if you’ve already wrapped your gifts maybe you can come back here next year 🙂 i plan to wrap like this for all future occasions so i hope it’s helpful regardless!