Frugal Ways To Gift Wrap

Homemade gift giving is so much fun and the rewards are everything from saving money to sheer enjoyment. It is a great way to recycle. I love to make my homehmade gifts look attractive. I believe this is part of the charm. I shop garage sales, tag sales, flea markets, estate sales or thrift stores for fancy bottles, gift baskets, coffee mugs, ribbons, raffia ect. You'll be surprised what you'll find when you start looking. A few years ago I want to an estate sale and purchased an entire box of ribbon and raffia, tape ect for a dollar. It was still in packages.

Cookie jars or Canister Sets or even pretty tins are a wonderful way to present homemade cookies. I've found some wonderful ones at garage sales or the flea market.

If you have a paper shredding machine, shred colored papers for inexpensive filler for baskets or gift bags. I acturally use newspaper shredded up, fill my basket or whatever then cove it with colored  scrunched tissue paper

Styrofoam chests and insulated bags make great gift containers that let you give items that need to be refrigerated as you can pack your goodies on ice. You can pick these items inexpensively at discount and drug stores. You just have to be on the lookout all year round because you never know what you will run across when you least expect it. It is for this reason that I keep collecting my ideas year round.

Save the bubble wrap, popcorn and styrofoam packing that comes with anything you have gotten during the year. This way if you are sending some of your homemade gifts out you won't have to buy these items. Wrapping is so fun. Dont forget to get the kids involved. They love to color and paste items on brown paper bags to be used for giftgiving. What a wonderful tradition to start. It will go from one generation to the next.