Natural Home Products

Environmentally friendly gift wrapping can be a bold and beautiful solution to your Christmas gift wrapping needs.  The drab, colorless eco-friendly gift wrapping of the past has given way to a new era of bright, colourful and chic eco-friendly gift wrapping products. Many stores carry their own line of “green” gift wrapping and it is easier to find a beautiful variety of eco-friendly gift bags, recycled gift wrapping paper, and eco-friendly ribbon and bows.

If you think about it, any gift wrapping that can be re-used helps to save the planet from more waste.  There are so many gift bags available that can be re-used and if you are thinking of saving waste, really any reusable gift bag is environmental.  Beautiful silk gift bags, organza gift bags, and recycled paper gift bags are re-usable and are an environmentally sensitive solution to your gift wrapping needs. If you give or receive parcels wrapped in paper, if it can be re-used, why not practise a little eco-friendly thrift?  So wrap your gifts up green this Christmas and start an earth-friendly trend with your friends and family.

It seems that as soon as Halloween passes, Christmas shows up in the stores across North America.  Decorations, presents and all that pretty Christmas gift wrapping.   No doubt that Christmas is a joyful time of celebration, but with the increased consumption, Christmas can also be one of the least environmentally friendly times of year.  Just think of the tons of Christmas gift wrap, cards, and decorations that end up in our landfills.  Practicing a little eco-friendly thrift around the holidays is a gesture that everyone, including mother earth, can appreciate.

With a little planning, it isn’t difficult to make your holiday celebrations a little greener!  When I tuck away the Halloween decorations, I like to pull out the Christmas wrapping, gift bags and cards left over from the year before.  After taking inventory of what I have to re-use, I then like to start my holiday shopping by looking for innovative, eco-friendly gift wrapping that will match the great gifts of the season.   As the movement to eco-chic gift wrapping increases, it is becoming easier to find re-usable gift bags, many crafted from natural fibres and ecologically friendly dyes.  A natural fibre gift bag, like a vibrant red burlap gift bag, can make a great “Santa sack” for your gifts this Christmas.  Eco-friendly gift wrapping that is fun to give and a pleasure to re-use.   A little eco-friendly thrift for the holidays is a gesture that can be appreciated!

Environmentally conscious shoppers are used to bringing their own tote bags to the grocery store. This practice cuts down on the vast amounts of pollution associated with plastic bags, which aren’t conducive to biodegradation. You might have heard about a floating wasteland of plastic that’s nearly the size of Texas. By cutting down on the number of plastic bags you use during you routine grocery runs, you can help keep that mass of plastic from growing any larger.

I’ve gone so far as to carry this eco-friendly practice over to my personal life. When I give a friend or family member a gift, I make sure it’s tied up in one of my vast array of organza tote bags. These reusable sacks are not meant to be thrown away, but even if they are tossed out the environmental impact is minimal. With any luck, the people I give gifts to will find inspiration in the reusable bag phenomenon and they’ll jump onboard as well.

When I was growing up, my siblings and I used to laugh among ourselves about our grandmother’s thrifty ways. The Frugal Gourmet had nothing on her; she could make leftovers last for weeks and wouldn’t even consider wasting a scrap of food. It was only later that I realized she had grown up during the Great Depression; the scrimping and saving mentality had never really worn off.

She also had a habit of saving bows and even wrapping paper at Christmas time, warning us that we shouldn’t tear the precious wrap to shreds. Over time, grandma’s way of thinking began to appeal to me more and more, although it was more for environmental reasons than anything else. For the last several years I’ve been utilizing a reusable gift bag when I give her a Christmas present; I think the gesture is appreciated.