I knitted an aghan for my niece for a wedding present. As I had to send it to her, I made a pillowcase,too. She really liked the pillowcase so when she has to store it, it has a special place.

I have done this for years. Children love to get a gift wrapped in Newspaper Comics. Besides that, when you are a single mother and money is tight, the cost is very inespensive.

I purchased some plain brown paper 10 mts about $4 months ago , and everytime the little ones come over we roll it out on the kitchen bench and drawn on it , play O & X on it , draw around our hands and have to draw bling it them , we have had so much fun , this is what I will wrap there christmas goodies in , and there are wonderful memories on it . Cathy

OOOOH...what wonderful idea. Thank you for asking the questions and to all the wonderful answers. I too hate using and wasting all that paper. Since i have little ones we give gifts in bags and ask the recipient to please reuse for another child.

I make reusable/reversible gift sacks. They have batting in them and I use a cord or ribbon to tie. It's like opening Santa's sack on christmas.

I love the idea of wrapping in a pillowcase! My oldest daughter like to make dresses for my youngest by cutting arm holes and a neck hole into all our pillowcases....so I can never have enough pillowcases.

Some good ideas here:

http://tipnut.com/wrap-up/

Here's a thought---------buy some sale fabrics and wrap gifts (to be opened at your house) in fabric that you can reclaim and use later.

Or make gift bags from fabrics.

LOL, I delight in taking ABC's bag into XYZ's store.

Now to practical--------I've made probably a hundred shopping bags from rummage sale pants and skirts. Some very pretty.

Have also made a couple dozen pillowcases-----but they are mostly gifts unto themselves.

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/projec...terns_ss1.html

Here are a lot of bag ideas with instructions.

What a great idea...now to find the time to make my own.

What a great idea...now to find the time to make my own.

I make receiving blankets to wrap baby gifts in. They get two gifts --- the blanket and the gift! For other gifts I make a tote bag or laundry bag to give them in.

Hi Debra, please explain what furoshiki is.

here is a good link.

http://furoshiki.com/techniques

I just ordered one of the reusable wrapping cloths from the WrapAgain Store. I am going to see how they are made and see if I can't make some for Christmas. At one time I was wrapping boxes and lids separately with really nice paper so that they could be used again...

Since we're into paper crafts too, we plan on doing something with the papers and using grocery sacks and jazz them up!

You can go to travel agencies and get travelogues that make great giftwrapping, too! You can probably order them online for free...

What is a furoshiki?

Thanks for the heads up. What a great idea! :thumbup:

I made this last night.

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/projec...erns_ss11.html

Some people I know are buying the 99 cent shopping bags in different colors and using an orphan block to sew on it and tehy are so cute. Great idea too. Bags and such are getting so high. This is a great post, good ideas. Thanks members

Idea using practice blocks.

These are great bags...love yours using Christmas fabric!

I made a 12 inch size using an orphaned block. There is a small scented candle in the one showing it being used.

Besides using the comics for wrapping paper, my DGM used to open up the large brown grocery bags and tie with strings. With money being tight, she used anything she could. We always knew which ones were from grandma and those would be the first ones everyone wanted to open.
This is a great thread and has a lot of fantastic ideas!!

The sweetest memories have "character".

I have that pattern and never thought to use it as a wrap! That is so cute with all the santas. I will use this idea!

For this bag I just used a layer of bottom weight fabric and not a thin batting, so I did use three layers of fabric. For the next one I'll sew up closer to the end of the handles than the 2" they suggest. It should still have the space to turn the project...and less hand stitching to close the seams. I'm also thinking about making another set of pattern templates and adding 1/4" seam allowances to the places it's taped together for a patchwork/scrappy bag.

For fellow quilters, I just use pretty fabric as if it were paper wrapping. Scotch tape holds it well and then the quilter can add the fabric to her stash. I received a gift in a bag once that had a piece of fabric in place of the usual tissue paper; that was nice.

I've used laundry basketa. If it was a smallish one and had goodies in it, I would put it in a great big trash bag and tie pretty ribbons on it.
Double purpose - the bag and basket were great for hauling the rest of the goodies home.

Does any one use Cloth Bandana's any more they are not your grandfathers snot rags anymore. Have pretty colors and now even fancy designs I made a quilt out of them fast simple and great and doesn't bother me to let our Boxers on the bed. Another wrap idea is to make the bags to hold plastic grocery bags--has elastic in both ends and can make holiday or everday ones. I had such a stash of plastic bags gave them full. I even made bigger ones and donated to local thrift shops as are always asking for recycle bags to send home our bargins.

Your quilt is beautiful! I have heard of using bandana's but this is the first quilt I have seen using them. I really like it and now plan to make one of my own.Thanks for showing yours!

for little trucks, cars, ect for boys, wrap gifts in old road maps that are taking up room in the jockey box of your rigs... Or for animal lovers, go thru magazines, cutting out photos of horses, ect, and wrapping gifts of animal figurines, ect in the photos, with raffia for the wrapping ( especially for horses, as it looks like horses tails, and manes)..
for little girls, wrap their gifts of barrettes, ect in dainty pairs of ruffled socks (* two gifts in one package! )...brainstorming here for my grandkids now. hehe.

A few years ago I made a bunch of fabric bags in assorted sizes from Christmas fabrics. They are still being passed back and forth between the family. Also, since I am a big chocolate fan :? I have lots of those fancy chocolate and cookie tins (like Hershey's etc.) that they put out every Christmas. I use those to store my ornaments the rest of the year, and when the ornaments come out, I can use them to package gifts and set them under the tree for display. Gifts opened, ornaments repacked, and I get to enjoy seeing the fancy tins for a few weeks.

I recycle almost every piece of paper but have gone into bags as they can be reused by the receiver at another time.

This site has a lot of ideas too!

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1123.asp

Thanks, I bookmarked the site. 8-)

Male recyclable cloth totes and stuff your gifts in it. Then both are useful as well as encouraging folks to go "Green".