I have always liked the look of good quality wrapping paper however I avoid purchasing it due to the cost and environmental impacts. My mom loves to tell people that even as a small child I would carefully unwrap presents in order to save the boxes, ribbons, and paper for later use.
Several months ago I noticed that walmart.com uses crumpled butcher paper instead of peanuts to pack their shipments. Although I was happy to see that they were using materials that could easily be recycled I thought it would be great to reuse/re-purpose this material before recycling.
After a few experiments I have managed to come up with several patterns that turn this ordinary butcher paper into amazing wrapping paper. I have wrapped all my holiday gifts this way and I plan on using this idea any time I need wrapping paper in the future.
Additional Tip: Have your kids decorate the wrapping paper for you – it is a great way to keep them entertained.
About Kelly Tirman
Kelly Tirman is the mom behind kellytirman.com and serves as Sr. Manager of Operations for Walmart’s Global eCommerce User Experience, Insights & Analytics teams. Kelly’s blog focuses on sharing ideas on urban living; including general lifestyle, raising multilingual children and organic beauty.
Pretty solid idea! I noticed that brown crumpled paper too… we have lots of it in our living room. Now, we know what to do with it!
I love creative ideas for wrapping presents, especially “green” ones that involve re-using and recycling. I’ve always been a careful “saver” of bows and wrapping paper as well!