Green Christmas tips - Wrapping Presents

Having finished my Christmas cards last week, I've now turned my attention to wrapping presents without spending any money on wrapping paper or ribbons. I've never been very good at beautifully wrapping presents as some of my friends do, so last year  I made an effort and added ribbons to all the presents. Not only did they look better, but I made sure to hang onto all the ribbons I had used so I could reuse them again this year. I have also got some paper that was left over from last year, so I could have just used that, but having enjoyed making Christmas cards, I thought I would try a little harder with the wrapping and show that it could be done stylishly, without the need for bought wrapping paper. So here's the results!

 

 For the men in my life, I used pages from an old Asterix book. The cover was torn, so it was too scruffy to give to a charity shop, but the pages make great wrapping. The ribbon was saved from last year, the bow saved from a present someone gave to us.
 

  For the other presents I used magazines from Christmas time last year. There was especially good photography in a homes magazine which I glued onto a shoe box to create a patchwork effect of Christmas images. 

For the smaller presents I just used a single page from one of the magazines. My favourite was the big reindeer picture in the top photo which was an advert in one of the magazines.

I am quite pleased with the results, now I will just have to wait and see if my friends like them too!