"Green" gift wrapping

Now that it is time to wrap all those holiday gifts, lets talk about doing it the green way.

1. In leiu of buying holiday wrapping paper, consider using the sunday comics. Most people care about what is inside, not the wrapper. Using the sunday comics keeps the package colorful and you can still top it off with some fun colored ribbon and bow.
2. Use gift bags. Craft stores often have them for less than $1 each. If you put the gift tags on the handles, often you can use these bags for several holidays before having to replace them. Consider buying solid color bags so that they can be used for other holidays as well, such as birthdays.
3. If wrapping a bottle of wine, consider using a festive napkin to wrap it in. Simply secure it with some holiday ribbon to keep it in place.
4. Feeling crafty? Grab some of those craft boxes, rubber stamps and permanant ink pads from the craft store. Once you decorate them, you can simply insert the gift and secure the lid with ribbon. These boxes are simlar to the bags in the sense that you can use them over and over.
5. Dig out those holiday cards from years past and cut off the pretty shapes from the fronts. Use these as gift tags on this years gifts.

On Christmas morning while you disassemble those toy packages, many of them are held in the box with twist ties. Consider putting those ties into a ziploc bag for later use. The longer ties work great to hold plants onto garden stakes.