Five unique holiday gift-wrapping ideas

Wrapping Christmas presents often feels like a chore, but it doesn’t have to. With a little creativity, you can make gift-wrapping fun — not to mention cheaper and more eco-friendly. Here are a few gift-wrapping ideas to inspire you.

1. Use recycled materials as gift-wrap. Wrap your gifts in recycled household items such as old newspapers and magazines, discarded maps, left over wallpaper and even gently worn clothes. With some extra effort, your presents will look just as beautiful and far more interesting than if they were wrapped in plain old store-bought paper.

2. Go monochrome. For a sleek, stylish look, consider using shades of the same hue for wrapping paper, ribbon and gift bags. Or, choose two or three colors to theme your gift-wrapping around (pick a combo other than red and green).

3. Add natural materials as decorations. Try wrapping presents in brown Kraft paper, tying them with string and decorating the packages with sprigs of evergreen or dried flowers. If you’re decking your house with holly or other seasonal greenery, save some of the foliage to use as embellishments for your wrapped gifts.

4. Try using furoshiki. Wrapping presents in patterned fabric, or furoshiki, is a Japanese practice that offers an esthetically pleasing and eco-friendly alternative to wrapping paper. Fabric can be reused year after year so you don’t need to buy, and throw away, copious amounts of wrapping paper each holiday season.

5. Have your kids design the paper. Have your kids decorate large pieces of thin, white paper to use for wrapping presents. The personalized drawings by your children will make the presents that you gift to your family members that much more meaningful.