#Wrapping #holiday #gifts can help you #reduce, #reuse and #recycle if you do it creatively. Try wrapping an odd-shaped gift in a tea towel, DIY Beautify suggests: Simply center the gift, pull up the sides of the towel and tie at the top. Or use scraps of attractive fabic in holiday colors to make ribbons rather than buying new. Top gifts with natural materials such as rosemary sprigs, dried orange slices, cinnamon sticks or pinecones, Environment America suggests. And if you must use store-bought papers, avoid those with glitter, foil and metallic elements or plastic coatings; these can’t be #recycled. #GiftWrapping
Tag: gifts
Simple (But Crafty) Gift-Wrap Ideas
The craftiest among us have many options when it comes to #wrapping #Christmas #gifts. Most Lovely things suggests using kraft paper and rubber stamps to create your own, one-of-a-kind, repeating-pattern wrap; making air-dried clay tags for labels that can double as ornaments; using white butcher paper and a labelmaker; or stringing candy canes on gifts with ribbon. The wrapping-challenged might opt for paper lunch bags with custom stickers or jam jars in a red-and-white pattern for cookies and other small items. While it’s the thought that counts, a gift’s look can make a splash with recipients, too! #GiftWrapping
Get Creative With Gift Wrap
Take it from the #gift-givers at the Organizing Blog: Even if a gift isn’t extravagant or costly, you can dress it up with wrapping that screams “open me first,” and you don’t have to spend a lot to make your gifts look special during the #holidays. With some creativity, even humble materials such as scrap paper, newspaper, kraft paper or vintage fabric can be used to give gifts a little extra panache. Practically anything that can be tied can be zjuzhed into a fancy bow for your #Christmas #gifts, too, from butcher string to twine to disused videotape. And there’s no shame in using a sticky bow or gift bag. #GiftWrapping
Good Gift Wrapping Makes the Holiday
No #Christmas tree would be complete without a pile of wrapped #gifts under it. If you want to go beyond the #gift bag and make your gifts stand out, start with a quality paper, the New York Times says; it will be less likely to rip as you fold it around the gift. Use invisible or double-sided tape and pick out quality embellishments such as a wide, wire-supported ribbon; they are easy to use even if you can’t tie a good bow. Tie on a few sprigs of seasonal greenery, a pine cone or a #holiday cookie cutter for added visual appeal — and of course a tag or sticker to identify the recipient. #GiftWrapping
Observing Boxing Day Traditions
The Organizing Blog’s favorite holiday is nearly here, and it isn’t Christmas, Hannukah, Diwali or Kwanzaa. It’s the day practically everyone pays attention to how much stuff they have and where they’re going to put it — Boxing Day!
Observed on the day after Christmas, Boxing Day got its start as an occasion for wealthy English landowners in to present servants and tradespeople with #holiday #gifts. The box — filled with seasonal delicacies and trinkets — was a gratuity recognizing their contributions over the year.
Boxing Day continues to be a holiday in many parts of the former British Commonwealth such as New Zealand, where anyone working gets time-and-a-half. And retailers in the United States use the occasion as an excuse to mark down merchandise and shore up holiday sales figures.
We regard Boxing Day as having a meaning that’s arguably closer to the original and more literal: a day to box up your holiday decorations and extra merchandise and give it to a worthy service provider or charity.
You can observe Boxing Day on Dec. 26th or any day of your choosing. Have some empty boxes ready to collect extra decorations and household goods, clothing that didn’t quite fit this season, books that have been read — whatever you no longer need.
Sort those things out as you bring a close to the holidays. As you see the boxes fill up, set them aside in a special location. As the boxes start to pile up — and this will happen faster than you might imagine — #schedule a #free #donation #pickup at ClothingDonations.org.
Put anything you will continue to use back into their proper, designated places in closets, drawers and bins. And know that you will be getting rid of some of the #clutter that has built up and be able to start the new year more #organized.
Your #donations go to a good cause: supporting programs that help the nation’s #veterans. And thanking #veterans — those who served — by giving merchandise is about as close to the original meaning of Boxing Day as you can get.