How to Make this Christmas a Green Christmas

Looking for an easy and budget-friendly way to make this Christmas green? By wrapping Christmas gifts with recycled items and inexpensive items purchased at the dollar store, you can save money and be a little more green. And your friends will be impressed with your creativity!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gifts to wrap
• Old newspaper, comics
• Old Christmas cards
• Scissors
• Tape
• Hole punch
• Yarn
• Ribbons
• Shoelaces (optional)

1. Save a newspaper, preferably a Sunday newspaper. By not using a fresh newspaper for this project, you cut down on the amount of ink that will transfer to your hands. You can also use glossy magazine pages for smaller gifts. Collect the gifts that need wrapping.

2. Pick the appropriate part of the newspaper for the gift recipient. Use the sports page for the sports lover, the food section for the cook, a fitness story for the fitness buff, the comics for a child, etc. Using scissors, cut the newspaper to the appropriate size. Wrap the gift, taping as usual. In my example above (see photo), I used a comic strip about the library to gift wrap a book.

3. Tie the gift with colorful yarn or ribbon. Or pick-up some ribbons or shoelaces from the dollar store. Tie a bow on a girl's gift with ribbons that can be re-used for their hair or use colorful shoelaces to wrap a little boy's gift.

4. 
   Christmas tags cut from old Christmas cards

   Recycle old Christmas cards for gift tags. Cut along the fold and use the entire front of the card as a gift tag - just punch a hole in the card front and attach it to a gift bag. Or cut an image or shape from the front of the card: easy shapes are squares, hearts, or a Christmas tree. Punch a hole in the tag and attach with yarn or just tape it to the box.

5. Give your gift wrapped with recycled care and watch the smiles begin!