Four Weeks’ of Festive Fun – brown paper gift wrapping

I was asked recently by a reader “have you always been like this?” We were having a discussion about waste and in particular my recycling efforts to help save the world. And I was totally honest when I told her no. In fact, not only have I not always been like this, I was once upon a time wasteful, not at all resourceful and had a penchant for the latest new and shiny. Cars, outfits, make up you name it, I wanted and often had the best of it. Life however has a funny old way of showing you what is important and what’s not and although that is way too long a story for today, do try to make it to the end of the post. I have a new and I hope interesting feature coming in 2020 which I would like you to be the first to know about it. For a great many years, I have as my much-loved Grandmother was heard to say, aimed to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” And today’s considered choice of brown paper gift wrapping for some of those silk purses is not entirely new to me nor I suspect to you. Join me for this, my last post before Christmas to see how my brown paper packages tied up with string look with a sprinkle of recycled bling in the mix. Perhaps you might find a favourite here, you would like to try yourself…

I am not a stats kind of girl. I think that may stem from being told early on in life I was pretty rubbish at maths and ok with words. You tend to believe what you’re told when you’re younger and so it was this young girl didn’t pay attention in her maths class. It matters not these days since I have a calculator and Mr M who did listen well to the tutors. The more mature version of my former self however has become increasingly interested in environmental stats (still not too hot on retaining them) and was shocked to read recently This year, we are expected to throw away no less than 227.000 miles of wrapping paper, enough to wrap around the Island of Jersey. Moreover, a great deal of that will be non-recyclable. If you’re interested in finding out how to test if wrapping paper is recyclable or not read this interesting article in Country Living on line.

I am using a variety of brown paper gift wrapping ideas this year, the sort of brown paper which is recyclable and readily available. I bought a roll 50 metres by 750 mm for under £5. That’s a lot of brown paper, doubtless I shall not run out any time soon. Sadly, the roll was covered in shrink wrap plastic; I guess Rome really wasn’t built in a day. I am also using nothing else other than the contents of my arts and crafts cupboard and recycled sparkle. And I have set myself a little goal since I am rather partial to a goal or two. Every present must be wrapped differently to the last. Right then, with the theme quite simply brown paper for gift wrapping, I began gathering all I would need.

For the sake of this blog post I stuck to wrapping one item over again. Two reasons for this. Firstly, it is entirely plausible those receiving these gifts will read this post and thus guess the contents and secondly brown paper is not in short supply here as we have since established. My vintage and recycled ribbons and rustic string made appearances once again and mini wooden pegs and fun faux scrabble letters joined the plethora of pretties and soon I was able to start,

Here is my take on gift tags. I do love a brown parcel tag however this year I have recycled several empty tissue boxes and by simply drawing around a small tag I already had and cutting out carefully, I have created my version of parcel tags. I hole punched a few for string and ribbon and left a few as they were. You could make these tags with wallpaper off-cuts or any strong paper or card. You could even use the brown gift wrapping paper itself cut into a shape of your choice.

My two tissue box tags, lent themselves to a variety of colour schemes so I had a play around with my craft stash attaching some of the tags with ribbon and string and others with the craft pegs.

And I particularly liked the simplicity of this gold and green combination…

Recently I purchased a few new Christmas stamps and gold and silver ink pads from here. These new inks are very interesting. They are more paint like and thus wetter than my usual ink pads making them ideal for embossing too. And so, whilst the print was still wet, I sprinkled a fine glitter over them to get the raised effect I was looking for. Rare to find a pot of glitter here, this one has been hanging around for a while however you can buy biodegradable craft glitter if you are of the glitter persuasion. I spent a happy while creating patterns directly onto the gift itself however in real life I would stamp the design onto the paper before wrapping the gifts. That way, patterns will run seamlessly over edges and corners.

For more bling I stuck several metallic stars and snowflakes onto the paper since I already had them. I doubt these are recyclable though so you might choose not to do so. Jingle bells, an offcut of string and a pretty hand written tie complete the look.

A bold red ribbon from last year’s wreath and beads from last year’s crackers no less, wrapped Lucy’s gift and the useful scrabble letters completed the childlike look. I saw in a charity shop recently a game of Scrabble with a note on saying “sorry some lost letter tiles” and thought how wonderful those tiles left would be, adorning gifts and cards.  Tim’s gift got a similar treatment with his ribbon folded into a makeshift tie and one of these instructing him what to do when he opens the gift. Interestingly the M’s will be wondering who Lucy and Tim are: I have no idea. I do know however my goal is achieved; every brown paper wrapped present looks different to the last.

And if none of these brown paper gift wrapping and bling ideas press a festive button for you, how about going au naturale. My Pinterest board has a few other ideas I gathered along the way, some of which I intend to try myself. For sure if all we do is simply recycle the countless bows and ribbons adorning this year’s gifts for next year, we’ll have made a difference. And, as for Christmas cards – not a huge fan of them myself as you may recall – it has been said, if we placed all our Christmas cards alongside one another they would stretch around the world 500 times.

And so to my new feature for 2020. On the last Thursday of each month (when I do not usually post a new story) I shall be sending to my subscribers only, a short story of their own. In Real Life will be just that. Musings from the M’s world with perhaps an occasional nod to a new craft item I’ve found and cannot live without, a podcast I’m listening to which you might like or maybe even an easy to use app rather like this one which proved a real hit with a great many of you. So, if there is anything in particular you might like to know or see included in the letter, please do ask. You can email me via the contact us page, direct message or leave a comment on either an Instagram or Facebook post and I am on Pinterest too. I’d love to know what you would like to read more of and remember you will only receive this additional story if you are a subscriber. So, get subscribing by filling out the form in the sidebar or at the foot of this page, if you want to read more tales from the M’s, warts and all.

And that, pardon the pun is a wrap. Thank you. For turning up and reading, for commenting and joining in, for sharing your own wonderful creative makes and stories, for sharing my work with your friends and family and for supporting me over and over. You are the best and I am truly grateful. I wish for you and yours a fun and Happy Christmas and a healthy, happy New Year. Enjoy the break however you spend it and I shall be back next year with news of my new word for the year and a review of this year’s word Calm. Twas an interesting choice, that’s all I am saying for now. My first post will be 16^th January 2020… gosh that seems a long way off; we both know it will be here soon enough however. Until then… x