Who ELSE remembers...RECYCLED GIFT WRAP?!?!?!?!

**Thrifty Mom** · 01-03-2009, 02:23 PM

I have saved tissue wrap , bows, boxes, bags etc. I will probably never need a wedding or baby shower bag, as I confiscated many from my two daughters' showers. Even reused the tissue with the BB&B embossing!. Our favorite is boxes. For five years we have passed around a cell phone box & also a box for a small heater. I totally confused my 5 year old grandson (from the non frugal side of the family) this year by wrapping his book in the Christmas light box & then told him not to tear up the box because I needed it back to store the lights!!

**kittykatstrong** · 01-03-2009, 02:30 PM

I have a ton of paper from my non-frugal days and I hope to never buy paper again. I save bags and reuse them also.

**peanut** · 01-05-2009, 12:33 PM

My mother never saved anything. But I sure do! I've been doing it for years. We actually switched to cloth bags for Christmas many years ago. But any paper wrapping that comes in the house is saved. Also any bows, ribbons, etc. I also make my own wrapping ribbon out of decorative plastic bags from various stores. Some of the colours and patterns are quite nice.

Jean

**IntlMom** · 01-05-2009, 12:53 PM

I save bags, bows, boxes and tissue paper......I;ve been known to save big, untorn peices of paper as well!!!

**dcompton** · 01-05-2009, 01:03 PM

I don't remember my mother doing it so much, but my grandmother surely did. Paper, bows, ribbon, boxes - that was back in the day when department stores actually put clothing items in white boxes rather than bags, especially around the holidays.

**dianne9106** · 01-05-2009, 01:44 PM

This I do all of the time. I will re-use if for smaller gifts or other projects. I save, ribbons, gift bags, and I have even recycled Christmas cards and sent part of them as post cards. Some paper is just too pretty to throw away. In our area though, the recycling place will not accept most Christmas gift wrap as it's got shiny stuff on it. So I used some I leftover from last year, which was recyclable. Oh and tissue paper - you better believe it! At my baby shower, I had a friend become my "paper manager", she was frugal too so understood!

**joyofsix** · 01-05-2009, 03:54 PM

Yep, my mom and grandma did it and I do too. I've gotten away from paper though and gone to bags. Much less likely to be torn.

**geckoace** · 01-05-2009, 04:37 PM

we dont wrap much but i am crazy about the gift bags, i immediately rip off the to/from tag fold them neatly and the tissue paper too. then i have them filed in a box by occasion LOL. my dh thinks im nuts.

the years we had kids we had so many baby shower gift bags that i put christmas presents in them too LOL we all reuse bags so everyone just laughed.
my best friend used to work in a dept store so she is a great wrapper, she gave me a gift one year wrapped in a box so nicely my mom and i both admired it. i carefully slid off the bow extracted my gift and used to inserted a gift for my mom and gave it to her the next holiday.... she was thrilled.

also there is a company called wrapsacks they have cards and gift bags that are made of fabric with a code so every time it is reused you are supposed to go to the site and say where you are and you can track the bag or card around the world....pretty cool