Getting eco-friendly gifts does not only mean that you need to pick out the most environmentally friendly items; sometimes, Green Christmas Presents would require you to exert a little more effort to ultimately help in saving the environment. In fact, considering that cards and gift wraps are made from paper, and manufacturing of which takes up too much of our resources, the use of these items when giving gifts might potentially have a great impact on the environment as well.
Therefore, if you were to give out gift items, make sure that you have looked into every possible chance you have in making it more eco-friendly. With this, the following are some gift ideas that you might find useful.
Create Your Own Cards
Saving the trees can be done by using recycled paper for your cards. You can purchase cards made from recycled paper from certain stores, but why not make cards on your own? If you want to personalize your gifts to the fullest, then using scrap papers or used cardboards to make your own card for your Green Christmas Presents would surely be a wise decision.
If you have children, then you can take this opportunity to spend some time with them and practice your arts and crafts skills. This way, you are making the endeavor more enjoyable as you help save the environment.
Choose Your Gift Wrap
Instead of buying wrapping paper, you can reuse the ones that are still intact from the gifts that you have received from previous year. If you have not saved any gift wrap from the presents that were given to you, you can make use of any kind of paper you can find in your own home. You can use old magazines, newspapers, or even shoe boxes to wrap your gifts. To accentuate your gift wraps, you can add some buttons or ribbons to make them look nice – all you need is just a little creativity.
After Christmas
Once the holidays are over, you might have a pile of cards or wrapping paper lying around in your house. If so, try to salvage as many as you can by keeping the ones that are still in good shape. Envelopes can be reused multiple times, and you can keep them for use next year for your Green Christmas Presents or for some other purpose. As for the cards, you can bring them to a store that recycles them to make sure that they can be reused. If you want, you can keep them as well for use by your kids in their art projects in school.
Some envelopes might appear a bit tattered, but you can turn on your creative mind and put it to good use. You can glue cutouts from old magazines to patch some torn parts, or you can simply draw on the envelopes to make it look nice. People appreciate the art (and the effort) that you put into your gifts, so do not worry about the gifts looking “recycled”.
Remember that the Green Christmas Presents would not only achieve your goal in reaching out to the people who are important to you, but they would also help (no matter how little) in saving the environment.