Home 27 Oct 2005 03:50 pm
Against wrapping paper
I am not a fan of wrapping presents with wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is briefly admired, if that, and then it’s trash. Much of the stuff appears to be so impregnated with weird plastics that I wonder if it’s okay to burn, but it usually winds up in the fireplace anyway. Don’t even get me started on that unholy mylar stuff; it’s probably great for something, but wrapping presents isn’t it. And inevitably, once I’ve finished wrapping my presents, I have just enough wrapping paper left on the roll that I feel obliged to try to store the ungainly leftovers somewhere. No more wrapping paper! I quit!
I don’t get a newspaper, or I’d wrap things in comics. The year I hid presents in papier-mache sculptures was fun, but I’m not about to do that every year. And my hippie home-made wrapping paper has tended to look either severe or dorky.
So this Christmas I’m wrapping most things Japanese-old-style in furoshiki. I’ve been meaning to do this for years. My first, more ambitious plan was to buy a bunch of squares and dishtowels from Dharma Trading Company and embellish them in some way, but that went out the window when I saw that the Seattle Restaurant Store had a sale on beautiful cotton dishtowels and napkins, some in holiday colors. I loaded up. I suppose a proper furoshiki is square, and the dishtowels might be a little thick to tie easily, but I’ll manage something. I am going for “useful”, not “authentic”, anyway.
Perhaps I’ll give people friendly apples for Christmas.
7 Responses to “Against wrapping paper”
on 27 Oct 2005 at 4:29 pm 1.Joy said …
I like to wrap things in butcher-paper and draw on it. Or cut up paper bags, the same. I also tend to obsessively save tissue-wrapping stuffing paper, smoothing it out and folding it up - and I’ve found that three to five layers of that can work. (For “draw” you should really read “write” because it is usually words and swirly abstract line thingys.)
But I’ve always admired the cloth-wrapping idea. So cool idea, and yay Cam!
on 27 Oct 2005 at 5:01 pm 2.cissa said …
Immediate family presents get wrapped in cloth bags here. For several years I’d make a number of cloth bags out of Festive Xmas Patterns for wrapping purposes. Since I made the bags, and loathe wrapping the most, I get dibs- but lately, there ahve been enough for all.
Someday when I’m feeling charitable, I’ll start allowing their use for non-immediate-family, whereupon they’ll be part of the gift.
There are so many cool Xmas prints in cotton in the quilting depts. that I’m not much tempted to make my own. However, I do need to place another Dharma order….
on 27 Oct 2005 at 5:49 pm 3.Sarah said …
I’m a HUGE fan of the gift bag. I receive enough of these to just keep giving them back, holiday after holiday, year after year. We have never purchased a single one, and yet we always seem to have a stash of them. The tissue paper keep just as well, since it doesn’t matter whether it’s fresh or four years old!
on 27 Oct 2005 at 9:26 pm 4.Anonymous said …
Mmm. Mylar… That reminds me, I need to get some mylar for my dirigible project…
on 28 Oct 2005 at 1:22 am 5.Lisa said …
Oh, those apples are very happy!
Yeah, my plan this year is to dye a whole bunch of them in one go and use them to wrap my auntie’s cookies.
They don’t really have to be dyed either, my grandma’s and aunties have always been white. But I want to try out that batik kit.
I still have little clue on what I’m going to do for cards.
on 28 Oct 2005 at 11:42 am 6.Wim said …
Since I was a kid my family has used cloth bags for presents (hmmm, not all presents, but many presents). As cissa says, there are all these festive or just interesting holiday prints available. Bags get passed back and forth, with a few new ones appearing each year.
There are some things I like about wrapping paper, though. Tearing it apart can be fun. And you can get very finicky and elaborate about a paper-wrapped present (although furoshiki looks pretty finicky and elaborate, so that’s ok too).
on 28 Oct 2005 at 1:03 pm 7.Cam Sculpin said …
Gift bags look like a great idea. I’ve been meaning to run some up on the sewing machine. Just one little thing: I’ve also been meaning to learn how to use the sewing machine. *blush* And I doubt I have the patience to hand-sew the little suckers.