5 Eco - Friendly Gift Wrap Ideas For Kids

 
Each year I use less wrapping paper, which is great.  However, I'm more proud of the fact that this year I involved the kids in doing it and I'm getting more creative about it to boot.  Here are 5 ideas we used this year - and so can you!

Decorating food boxes

Take any old food box (we used two cereal boxes) and pop it apart.  Then reglue the side seam with the 'wrong'/pre-printed side in.  Once that's dry you can decorate it.  Older Toad drew his own tree to decorate and I drew one for younger Toad.  Then they used their favorite, glitter glue pens, to add in ornaments.  Doing this flat is easier.  Once it's decorated, glue the bottom closed too (I used rubber bands to apply some pressure while it was drying).

 

Creating gift tags from paperboard packaging

You can use any paperboard packaging you've got laying around for this.  Draw small shapes on the blank side of the packaging.  In this example I traced small Christmas cookie cutters.  Cut your shapes out and hole punch a hole.  Then apply glue to the already printed side.  Finish with a generous sprinkling of glitter. 

Painting take-out food clams

The cafe next to my husband's work uses paper to-go packaging.  We end up with a lot of their packaging because his colleagues save their unwanted leftovers to go home to our chickens.  The paper containers are great to decorate because they accept paint readily compared to the styrafoam or plastic.  The Toads painted one side, let it dry, and then painted the other.  The next day they decorated them.

Dressing up plain paper bags

All that's required for this is a hole punch and some ribbon.  Take any paper bag you've received, fold over the top, punch two holes, tie a bow.  On the smaller bags, or those you want to lay flat, it's helpful to staple the bottom to the sides so it's not floppy.  This is great shoelace tying practice too!

Beautifying packing paper

Some companies are doing much better about not using plastic peanuts in their shipping.  When you get that plain brown paper, before you just recycle it, try upcycling it into gift wrap.

 

 You can draw on it.

You can stamp on it.

Or you can apply any art materials you've got around to dress it up and personalize it. 

There's lots more ideas for upcycling packing materials into gift wrap out there.  If you've done any fun ones with your kids, please comment with a link so we can see your fun ideas too.

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