Valentine’s Day: eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas

Valentine’s Day is coming and, if you go green and reduce the waste of wrapping paper on your gifts, I’ve got three ideas for you.

1) Furoshiki

One idea is to wrap your gift in cloth using a Japanese tradition called Furoshiki. You can use a nice piece of cloth – or even a scarf – which will add to your gift as they can be used by the recipient. By using this method you reduce the consumption and waste of paper in a charming way (like in this picture above, from weekendknitter). Here are some of the many ways to wrap gifts Furoshiki style.

Illustration: Japanese government guide to encourage people to reduce the usage of wrapping paper.

2) Repurposed paper

You can also reuse paper from old books, magazines, music sheets, travel guides and so on (like in this pic from Erinzam).

3) Origami boxes

Another idea is to create origami gift boxes, instead of buying new boxes. If you make it with used paper, even better! And you can combine it with the other ideas, by placing your gift in the box and then wrapping with repurposed paper or furoshiki style. Here’s link to a video teaching how to make an origami box.

Photo: Naenia Ivella.