Six ideas for minimalist, sustainable gift wrapping

I love making gifts extra-special by wrapping them beautifully, but I’ve become increasingly aware of the environmental impact. In fact I recently read that the wrapping paper we throw away each Christmas in the UK alone could stretch to the moon and back, and that’s before you take account of the tags, ribbons and bows. In recent years I’ve been making an effort to make my own wrapping more sustainable, and I thought I’d share the various tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.

So, here are six simple ways to create gorgeous gifts without generating loads of waste. As always I’ve focused on the kind of timeless, minimalist aesthetic that appeals to me, using examples from my own Christmas wrapping over the years and elsewhere.

Choose recycled wrapping paper & natural materials

Like many people, I used to assume that most wrapping paper is recyclable – but in fact many designs have foil coatings or glitter which mean they’re unsuitable and end up in landfill. Plain brown Kraft paper is normally safe to go in your recycling (just make sure you remove any sticky tape first), but you can go one step further by choosing gift wrap that’s made from recycled materials in the first place. Cox & Cox’s thick cream paper, derived from recycled sugar cane, is a great example.

It’s also worth checking that none of the accessories you use include any nasty substances. I love the natural silk ribbon from Silk & Willow (below), which is made using plant dyes and comes in an array of colours, lengths and widths. They sell organic hemp twine, silk gift bags and handmade cotton-paper tags made from t-shirt remnants, too.

Wrap things in fabric

Another option is wrapping gifts in fabric – something that’s long been popular in Japan, where the cloths used are known as furoshiki. You can buy furoshiki from The Furoshiki Wrap Company, which has handy tutorials showing how to wrap various shapes and sizes of item, but you could also use sewing offcuts or napkins, snip up old tablecloths or sheets that might otherwise go to landfill, or even source secondhand scarves from charity shops.

In Japan furoshiki are traditionally returned to the giver for reuse, so you could include a polite note asking recipients to do just that. Alternatively, make the wrap part of the present itself and encourage them to either use it themselves or gift it forward in the future.

Decorate parcels with foraged greenery & other natural finds

When it comes to decorating your gifts, sprigs of seasonal foliage look beautiful – just tuck them into the ribbon or fabric, or attach to one corner with a bit of washi tape. It’s much more sustainable than foil bows or plasticky trinkets, and you can use anything you want – festive fir or holly, fragrant rosemary or eucalyptus, even dried ferns. If you’re using fresh greenery it’s best added at the last minute so that it doesn’t dry out, but you can get the rest of the parcel wrapped and ready in advance.

Other natural options include feathers, pine cones (as I used with the furoshiki above), and dried orange slices, like Silk & Willow has done below. The latter are very easy to create – just arrange thinly sliced oranges on a baking-paper-lined tray and stick them in the oven at 140C / 120C fan for 45 minutes to an hour, turning half way through. You can then thread them with ribbon or twine for attaching to gift tags or bows.

Add a tree ornament they can keep

Alternatively, give two gifts in one by adorning parcels with Christmas-tree ornaments. They add an extra-special touch to any present and can even double as gift tags – just choose a marker pen that washes off whatever material the ornament is made from (you can buy versions for glass, metal, fabric and ceramics) and write the recipient’s name as beautifully as you can.

Use photos as gift tags

Another way to give a memento the recipient can keep is by printing off photos to use as gift tags. It could be a snap of a special moment, a picture of you both together, or just a pretty image that you think they’ll find appealing. You can order mini photo prints via Inkifi, which uses FSC-certified paper and donates some its revenue to environmental causes.

Collect things to reuse

Finally, you’ll notice that a lot of the gifts shown in this post feature the same paper and twine, even though they were photographed over several years. That’s because I try to fasten things in a way that means they can be undone without needing to be cut by scissors, and I take a couple of minutes to go through the debris of Christmas unwrapping sessions and pull out anything that I think can be reused. Over the course of the year, I also save pretty bits of paper and packaging from things that are sent to me and things that I buy.

It might sound a bit Scrooge-like, but you can create some really beautiful effects. If you don’t have a large enough piece of paper to go round a gift, for example, you can use a contrasting layer to cover the gap, as I’ve done in the image below. And I really wouldn’t be offended if someone gave me a gift decorated with ribbon or wrap that I’d given them in a previous year – in fact I’d be impressed by their resourcefulness and sustainable approach!

Image two via Cox & Cox; images three, four and 10 courtesy of Silk & Willow. All other photography by Abi Dare

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