Last christmas she even collected up the wrapping
from everyone`s gifts that she deemed re-usable.

We all laugh about it but with the cost of such things
these days I winder whether I should start.

I used a hole punch and punched holes around the top and threaded that with a ribbon (also purchased at a thrift shop), so we did not ever tape the bag, we just tied that same bit of ribbon shut.

But the time we quit using it (mice got to it, if I remember right, and that was why it had to go), it was looking a bit tatty and worn, but by then it had become a Tradition, and children adore traditions (even when they are grown), and they would have been quite indignant had we foisted off some shiny new impersonal packaging on them.

It helps, too, I think, that our family doesn’t throw big expensive birthday bashes. Birthday parties are quiet at home affairs, with home-made cake and often home-made gifts, or second hand store presents.

Do you mean one paper bag lasted 10 years? That is quite a feat and just shows the true possibilities of reuse!

Thanks for the link, just checking it out now.

I have also used a brown paper bag decorated with fabric paints (picked up at a yard sale), and we used this bag for birthday gifts within our family for at least ten years. Oh, and we’ve made wrapping paper by stamping images with a potato stamp cut with a Christmas cookie cutter onto brown paper bags cut open, wrapping paper from a move, and sheets of blank newsprint from a yard sale.

We have also made our own bows using pages from magazines, from other old wrapping paper, from catalogs, and even newspaper (this looked strangely cool). If you scroll down here you can see a photograph of some of them.
.-= Deputyheadmistress´s last blog ..Sunday Hymn Post =-.