Things You'll Need:
- Newspaper, comics page, paper grocery bags or other paper or fabric
- Scissors
- Tape
- Fancy ribbons
- Art supplies (optional)
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Step 1
Choose a paper to use for your wrap. Comic pages can be good for kids' gifts. Pages full of words can be good for bibliophiles (and look good accented with colorful ribbons). Paper grocery bags are a great standard paper, because they are so common and generally have a nice plain surface on the inside.
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Step 2
If you are using a plain paper, consider decorating it. You could draw or paint on it or paste on magazine images for a collage effect. Printing on wrapping paper is also fun and easy, and is especially worthwhile if you have a lot of wrap to make. (If you are wrapping present with kids they might enjoy using stamps cut from potatoes to decorate the paper with paint.)
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Step 3
Find a large section of paper and wrap your gifts in the usual way. If you use recycled newspaper, try more than one layer for a more durable wrapping. If you use fabric, start with a fairly large piece that can be wrapped around the gift in several layers and reused later with a different size or shape of gift. Whatever you choose to use for your wrap, make an extra effort to wrap neatly, which will make the recycled wrapping look fancier.
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Step 4
Decorate the gifts. If you have them, use plenty of ribbons and bows, which looks especially nice with plain paper finishes (and can also be recycled if you save them whenever you receive gifts). You can also make your own tags out of blank paper or the pictures from old greeting cards.
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Step 5
For another type of recycled gift wrap, make simple bags in a variety of sizes out of fabric. Just pop the gift in the bag and tie the top with ribbon or another strip of fabric.
