Three Great Gift Bag Ideas

Oh gift bags how you make wrapping gifts so speedy! Gift bags are fabulous for wrapping odd shaped gifts like soccer balls and stuffed animals. Gift bags can easily be reused from one year to the next, which makes them an easy and  inexpensive way to go green without being so In Your Face Trying To Send a Message. 

Don’t you just love it when the cheapest and easiest way is the greenest way?

According to an article on Lehman’s blog: “We throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of year.  This amounts to 25 million tons of extra trash.”

Wow.

That's another great reason to consider using gift bags if not for all, at least for some, of your Christmas gift wrap.Truthfully, I leave most of the gift bags in the gift wrapping box for Husband because he hates wrapping gifts and doesn't think he's as good at it as I am. Let me go on record by saying that he does give and wrap good gift. Let me also go on record by saying that I realize he might be using this as an excuse to get me wrap most of the gifts at Christmas. Fair is fair. He makes my dinner almost every night. I can take on gift wrapping duties.

Three Green Gift Bag Ideas

 

1. Paper gift bags – You can buy ready made paper gift bags in almost any store and use them until they wear out. Most are recyclable if you stay way from the metallic and foil papers. On the other hand, you could consider decorating and reusing a paper shopping bag as a gift bag.  I do this with Blitzkrieg’s gifts.

 

I can unwrap my own gifts if they are in a gift bag. Lisa reuses store bags for me because I like to rip and play in the bags on Christmas day!

2. Make fabric gift bags – Last year I sewed some simple fabric drawstring gift bags during last year’s Santa’s Little Sweat Shop Sew a Thon. You can also buy fabric gift bags from stores and from many  Etsy sellers if you don't sew or have time.

I sewed this simple gift bag using Michigan fabric for a Michigan fan. I used the scraps to make a braided dog toy for an Ohio State fan. *hee*

3. Use a reusable shopping bag as gift wrap – I get tripped up in not having a reusable shopping bag, for impulse purchases and nongrocery shopping. Having a sample foldable Chico bag  clipped to my purse strap saved me at least three times from the disposable plastic bag trap and keeping my November One Small Change while on Thanksgiving vacation in Texas.  For those people who have expressed interest in my little Chico bag, I’m going to wrap their gift in a Chicobag reusable shopping tote. Easy. Easy. Easy. The video below shows a simple and cute way to wrap a gift in a Chicobag. Or if you don't sew or need more shopping totes. You could buy the holiday themed Chico Bags and use them for wrapping gifts from year to year.

 

Gift bags are an easy way to quickly wrap gifts. Although they might not work for you if you have a house with one or more pre-Christmas gift peakers. I’m not a pre-Christmas gift peaker*, are you?

*Blitzkrieg has always been a Peke but he's not a gift peaker. He wanted me to tell His Public that. (I know my dog is more popular on my blog than I am. I gave up trying to be as cool as he is years ago :)

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