12 Clever Ways to Re-Use Wrapping Paper — I love the way all of the presents look under the tree, brightly wrapped and bowed. I don’t like the garbage bags full of paper that head for recycling afterward, though. In fact, it kind of makes me feel bad as a human that all of those resources were used up for what amounted to about 30 minutes of ripping and tearing joy.
So, this year, I am going to find a way to re-use some of the paper that would otherwise be destined for immediate recycling. It makes me feel a little bit less guilty about being a consumer.
If you want to hop on board, here are a 12 clever ways to re-use wrapping paper and help you give a second life to all that extra paper:
Make DIY seedling pots. You don’t need huge pieces of paper for this project, so it’s ideal. It’s actually mindless work, so I usually pop in a movie and make piles of them.
Put it through the paper shredder and you have instant colorful confetti to use in other wrapping all year long. Stash the shreds in a big Ziploc bag so that you don’t find pieces of it sneaking out everywhere.
Save the pieces for book covers for the kids’ textbooks. This is probably best for those wrapping papers that are festive without being overtly Christmas-y. Unless you have one of those kids that would carry a Rudolf covered Algebra book. In which case, I say I like your kid already.
Line drawers or cupboards.
My grandmother always lined her cupboards with old newspaper, Even though contact paper was under $5, she never could get on board with buying something when she already had something that worked perfectly well. I think we could all use a little bit more of that mentality.
Make fun pen and pencils holders. Save and wash the can next time you open beans {or whatever} and then use the wrapping paper to decorate the outside. If you want to give it a more durable finish, I recommend a little Modge Podge top coat.
Save it and make DIY name tags.
Cut circles, squares…even trapezoids, if you are so inclined and use them as name tags next year. Use a hole punch to punch a hole and feed some ribbon through it—then you can tie it onto your gift easy peasy.
Use the scrapes to make your own Christmas thank-you cards. Festive and free.
Use it to wrap delicate Christmas decorations before you store them for the year.
Use it to make a piñata for your kiddo’s next birthday party. Again, this is one of those that you can use the less overt Christmas paper for. Brightly colored papers and/or patterns would work great.
Frame it in cheap-o dollar store frames for instant Christmas décor next year.
If you are a scrapbooker, save the wrapping paper to use in your scrapbooking.
Make a paper count-down chain and stash it in Christmas décor so it will be ready for the kids to tear off each day next year.
Do you already re-use your wrapping paper? How do you give it a second life?
~Mavis
Lynne says
When kids are small, presents are big and brand loyalty to certain Christmas characters is strong, you do your best. Some white kitchen trash bags might lend themselves to a festive bow treatment for big/odd sized presents, and serve to hold the inevitable trash from gift opening. When you have some flexibility, buy with the recycling end in mind. Avoid overtly “holiday” paper, and be mindful of how the paper will work best for you in its next life. Maybe consider switching to fabric, either made into bags or used as wrapping paper. Those can be used again, or recycled into quilts/stockings/decor for future years.
Rosemary says
Great ideas for all those scraps! I love the shredder idea as I send out a lot of packages. I never thought about lining drawers with them . . . hmmmmm . . .
Over the years I have been using gift bags. I save the bags that I get a gift in and re-use them. If they are a solid color, I use them for other holidays like birthdays, Valentine’s Day, etc. I can’t remember the last time I bought gift bags!
Kathryn says
My grandma would dry iron it and store it to wrap smaller gifts next year. She also ironed tissue paper. I don’t recommend this if the wrap has any mylar or plastic elements.
Katelyn says
I think it’s worth buying higher quality wrap (you can still get it fairly affordably at Costco or HomeGoods) because it’s so much easier to open the gifts without tearing the paper.
My favorite wrapping paper reuse story is that my mom saved the paper from her baby shower with me (in 1979) and used it to wrap the gifts for my baby shower (in 2010). It was so sweet!
Susie says
That is so sweet! Such forethought!
Ramona says
For those that don’t reuse gift wrap there are some paper ones that are not supposed to go into a recycle bin. Paper with glitter, metallic paper, and several others, check what your recycle accepts.
I did not know this until a few years ago when I was at someone’s house and all the used wrapping paper went into a trash bag for garbage. I asked why it wasn’t going into recycling and they said it wasn’t recyclable.
At my house I am usually the one that opens gifts so I can reuse the paper. I have tissue paper that I have collected from others discarded gifts.
Carol says
There was a white aisle runner at my niece’s wedding made of fused white paper, sort of like interfacing, with a pretty design on it. I salvaged it from the toss pile and have been using it for years to wrap baby gifts for her children and other babies.
Sue says
These ideas are fantastic. SO MUCH BETTER than throwing away all that pretty paper! Thank you, Mavis!!
Karen says
Our family has reused wrapping paper for so long that I still have paper that wrapped a gift my grandparents gave me. I’ve used it to cover salvaged packaging to make permanent storage containers for especially fragile, oddly shaped, or downright dangerous-to-use Christmas decor. One year I made a small paper bandbox container for a set of old tin candle holder clips. Before electric tree lights the clips were used to decorate trees with lighted ?! candles. I bring them out every year, leave the lid ajar, and let the memories begin.
Ashley Bananas says
I want to stop buying wrapping paper all together. I still have rolls and rolls. I’m not going to buy any on clearance. I have often wrapped items in comic book newspaper and I think I’m comfortable doing that in the future. It just seems like a waste of money to me.
Stacey says
Hi Ashley, a co-worker told me that she only uses plain brown paper that is recyclable for wrapping all year round. She has her daughter draw pictures on it for decoration, and everyone always loves it. I have a role of it and tried it, but found that I couldn’t get good tape that would stick well enough. I wanted the tape to be recyclable too! Anyway, thought I would pass this along.
Linda Sand says
When our daughter was small I bought themed fabric, cut it into various sizes, and hemmed them. These were used to wrap presents year after year.
Patti says
I reuse my wrapping paper on the next year’s gifts. I have just recently learned via internet to use different small pieces put together to make bigger pieces – so far I have just used two different ones (half a package in one, half in the other) and then tied a ribbon on the seam but you could do a patchwork of smaller pieces. When I had my baby shower for my son (31 years ago), they saved the paper and I used it to line his dresser drawers and they also used some to cover a picture frame mat with it and gave that to me later.
SueD says
I stopped using wrapping paper about 20 years ago. I bought Christmas fabric when it was at least 75% off, and sewed various sizes of gift bags. Nothing super fancy, though if I had some extra lace I would sew it on a few. I also tacked a piece of ribbon towards the top of the bag, to close it. It’s fun picking out bags to reuse and remembering when 1 child was fixated on a certain character or colour. Santa gift bags were colour coded, red for 1 child, green for the other, and always had a Santa print of some sort.
Gwyn says
When I was married many years ago someone said to line drawers with the wrapping paper. So I started married life with our wedding gift wrap lining our dresser drawers. When I had my daughter I used the gift wrapping paper from the gifts we received for her and lined her dresser drawers. It was a lovely to keep those sweet memories every time I put clothes away.
Linda says
You can also make paper beads to make Jewelry. On another note I saw something clever and thought of you. I couldn’t get the picture to copy or I’d post it. The rope of different colors that is used for boey etc wash up on the beach, a person collected it and somehow made coiled outside rug with it. It was neat.