Video:5 Ways to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

Transcript:5 Ways to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

Hi! This is Meghan Lynn Allen for About.com, and today we'll discuss 5 ways to recycle used gift wrap. We take a lot of time to wrap up gifts in pretty paper, but that pretty paper often ends up on the ground in a matter of minutes or seconds, and often seems unusable. Well, that's not always true. Here are five ways you can recycle that gift-wrapping paper.

Recycle Used Gift Wrap Into Bag Filler

Why not recycle that paper into some decorative box and bag filler? That's that shredded paper that helps cushion the gift. And often people go to the store to buy that shredded paper, or they might take some nice, fresh white paper from their printer at home and put it through the shredder. Instead, why not save your crumpled up gift-wrapping paper throughout the year -- could be from the holidays, could be a birthday -- keep it in a special pile and use it just for this occasion.

Create Gift Tags to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

Making your own gift tags is not only creative and fun and a great way to recycle wrapping paper, but it can also save you money. Why spend money on professional sticker or stamp gift tags when you can make your own? Take a small square or rectangle of that wrapping paper, fold it in half and write your message on the inside. And if you want to give that gift tag just a little more weight and heft, you can glue it to a piece of card stock or some recycled cardboard that you have around the house.

Make a Greeting Card to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

You can also create an easy-to-make greeting card. Take a large section of wrapping paper that isn't too crumpled, you can fold that in half and just cut along the edges to make sure it's straight, like a rectangle or square, and write on the inside -- that blank side of paper -- and use that for your card. You can also take a large section and fold it the other way with the graphic facing itself. Fold it in half and fold it in half again. Now you can write on the front of the card, the back, as well as the inside.

Make Collages to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

But what about all those little scraps of paper? You can take those and add them to your own, or your child's, art supply box. And you can use them in future projects. Think about collages. Bright, decorative, shiny wrapping paper makes a nice contrast to natural materials, metallic materials, or plain colored paper.

Create Bookmarks to Recycle Used Gift Wrap

Glue large wrapping paper to card stock and turn it into a bookmark. You'll want to use sections that are 2 inches by 8 inches, and you can look to the web to crafting websites to provide some templates -- or About.com's own Family Crafts site.

Thanks for watching. To learn more, visit us on the web at About.com.