How to use junk and trash to make stunning packages for Christmas
Coxcomb + greenery + rose hips + muslin + twine!
INWHICH I realize that I’ve unwittingly started a new series!
In a post last week I shared with you all how I took some dead stuff from the ditches and made dried arrangements for a quick Christmas decorating project. Today we’re going to wrap presents with trash. Are you excited? Where else but on a website called “vomiting chicken” could you find such unique ideas? 😉 (harhar)
Let’s get started.
But first, a brief disclaimer . . . I’ve always been a bit of a tightwad where wrapping presents are concerned . . . ask my kids (blushing). Everything they tell you about my present-wrapping tightwaddery is true. We had plenty of lean years, when the kids were young, when I used newspapers to wrap our gifts because they were free (the newspapers), and new wrapping paper was not. I still prefer free or nearly-free wrappings, since using my creativity, in this case, is so much cheaper.
Do you know what happens at our house with all that beautiful paper when it is removed (undecorously, by the way) from the gifts? It is wadded into balls and tossed across the room (quite vigorously, by the way) at other gift unwrappers. Then, at the end of the day, all those little wads are gathered up and pitched into the garbage. Colored papers you can’t even pitch into the wood stove. It’s all trash.
INWHICH I realize that tightwaddery leads to creativity
Amalia and I have indulged in a couple of fun gift-wrapping sessions over the past couple of weeks. This is what we do: we gather together tape and scissors (two of each, we learned our lesson!) and rolls of some plain scrounged white paper and newsprint.
Little bitty package, big bow made of muslin, dried flower and book page.
INWHICH I share all my secrets of same
We’ve gathered together other things, too, which cost us very little, if anything:
- old maps
- brown grocery bags
- twine
- strips of leftover fabric (I really liked the looks of muslin this year)
- dried ditch goodies: rose hips, milkweed pods, other seed pods, dried leaves, dried coxcomb, etc.
- dried flower bed goodies: coxcomb, zinnias, sedum heads and whatnot
- damaged, duplicate books, many with charming illustrations inside
- last year’s beautiful seed catalogs
Is your imagination percolating yet? Have any of this old stuff cluttering up the hovel? Here’s what we did with them:
Photographic evidence:
This is Amalia’s work: lots of book pages, many of them yellowed (neat) and twine, some of it frayed (also neat).
Another bitty box decorated with a single book page, a bit of twine, and a dried coxcomb.
Coxcomb makes such a pretty package decoration, especially paired with some greenery and strips of muslin.
Conclusion with which I don’t use “inwhich”:
So if you don’t like to take out a loan to buy the fancy rolls of wrapping paper . . . or if you just don’t want to trudge to the store again . . . do what we did and get creative with the free stuff (mostly trash!) that’s all around you.
Now I’d better get to wrapping . . . I’m not finished yet! Tra-la, Gentle Readers! Happy wrapping to you, and a very merry Christmas. (And if you’re finished already with all the wrapping, please don’t tell me.) 😉
A Quick Tip for the last-minute Harried Shoppers:
*OH!* Still ordering and buying Christmas gifts? Check out these resources, right here at vomitingchicken.com. :
My Dad is still making these lovely French rolling pins for my shop. They just keep getting prettier!
And my new Coon Creek Herbs shop is open! Click here to snatch up a 4-tin set or two of my naturally-grown, special recipe herbs and spices mixes! But hurry and do it today. I have a limited supply and they are going fast! FREE gift wrapping if you order by Thursday December 19, too. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thanks, you all. I love you. (I mean it!)
*hugs*
- How to make pretty displays for the holidays out of dead stuff . . .
- Cookie Heritage: Springerle recipe, tweaked