Frugal Fridays – Cloth Gift Wrapping

Sorry about the lack of posting yesterday. I didn’t quite have my post ready when we realized that the weather predicted more rain and snow, and we were running low enough on a few things that a trip to town was in order. Having to proceed as slowly and carefully as required for the road conditions ate up the whole day, and I never could get that post finished. 

Well, we’re all stocked up now, so back to our regular posting!

It’s Frugal Friday again!

This week, I’m all about Cloth Gift Wrapping. 

The first time I heard of this was from another FPIES Mama, who commented that she’d had to switch to cloth gift wrapping when HER FPIES baby kept trying to eat the wrapping paper…which would have made him sick.

Since that was my “whine” at the time (that we wouldn’t be able to wrap gifts this Christmas because Zac would eat the paper and get sick), I stuck this little idea in the back of my head and knew I would do it this year.

From that time til now, I’ve seen LOTS of people doing this online! It’s become the “eco-friendly” choice of Pinterest and there are a ton  of tutorials on making bags or otherwise using cloth to wrap presents.

Honestly, this isn’t necessarily a frugal option on the face of it. Cloth, especially in festive patterns, can be a great deal more expensive than paper wrapping (particularly if you stock up in after-Christmas sales).

I think that in the long run, though, this is a fabulous frugal choice. 

For starters, nothing says you HAVE to use fancy Christmas prints for your gift wrapping. You could simply reuse some old t-shirts, dress shirts, or other source of cloth that you have laying around.

But even if you do go out and purchase festive printed material, if you’re smart and take the long view of things, this will save money (and waste) over the course of your child-raising years – and beyond.

I did buy festive print material, but not very much. See, I have a plan.

 

My goal is to buy a small selection of pretty, festive Christmas material every year, gradually increasing my gift wrapping selection until I have a decent variety to choose from.

So this year, I’m just using single sheets of fabric (2 yards), unfinished edges and all, to wrap my gifts. 

Next year, when I buy a little more, I’ll sew a solid color to the backside of a print for a double sided ‘sheet’ of wrapping cloth for a more finished look (and to offer more options throughout the year).

The year after that, when I buy a little more, I can start making cloth gift bags for odd sized things.

Along the way, I plan to find/buy/make gift boxes in uniform sizes for gifts that will accommodate my gift cloth sheets perfectly.

It’s all about the long view on this one, folks, but in the end, I won’t have to worry about running out of wrapping paper at any time, and one day my kids will be older and will have memories associated with these cloth wrapping sheets.

I can only imagine the nostalgia that will overcome them when they say “Oh, remember when we got the _____ that year? Mom wrapped it in THIS!”

Tradition, you know?

This will work for my family, because none of them will blink at my insistence on taking the material back after they’ve opened their gifts!

If you’re giving gifts to friends, strangers, or really uptight family members, though, you might check out some tutorials on making gift bags so you won’t have to ask for it back; the bag is part of the gift!

Here is a quick run down of everything Pinterest has to offer. This one from the Frugal Girl is all about using old clothes to make gift bags. The Happy Housewife had a great tutorial on using T-shirts as gift bags – pretty easy, too!

I’ll leave you with this little photo show of how I wrapped one of the boys gifts this year:

First, I folded the sheet of fabric with the raw edges toward the center.

See?

That left the edges nice and smooth. Then I pulled the folded edges up to cover the sides of the Lego box, and used a straight pin to hold them in place while I messed with the ends of the fabric.

Then, unfortunately, I needed both hands to finish the wrapping so I couldn’t take pictures. Basically, I sort of folded the fabric in on itself at the ends until I could neatly pull it up over the top on both ends (removing the straight pin along the way) until I had this:

I had some satin ribbon in my sewing box, so I just cut off a REALLY long piece of that and used it to hold the fabric in place.

All that’s left is to attach a gift tag, and it’s ready to put under the tree!

Next year, I’ll sew the solid color to the back so I can wrap more creatively, sometimes leaving the ends exposed. I won’t have to be so careful about covering unfinished edges, and it will just look nicer.

After Christmas, I’ll check the after Christmas sales to see if I can find some discount holiday material to put in the stockpile for next year, and I’d suggest you do the same.

Cloth gift wrapping is a clever way to save money in the long run, and save a ton of waste in the landfill…and also make sure your FPIES kiddo won’t get sick on Christmas morning.

Happy Gift Wrapping!!

Hope that helps!

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Do you wrap your gifts with cloth? Any tips, tricks, or ideas you could share?