Happy season of jolliness and merriment and all the other warm, tingly feelies! Who else gets excited about wrapping presents? I had so much fun with these gift wrapping ideas and I’m excited to share with you and yours!
Christmas is such a fun time to spend with family and make wonderful memories! Unfortunately, it can also be a time of huge waste. Anyone else feel kinda yucky about buying paper only to watch it get torn off and thrown away?
But anyway, I’m not here to be a judgy grinch. After all, I still buy wrapping paper from time to time. But Christmas seems like the perfect time to get creative with some gift wrapping ideas using nature and other recycled materials!
You know all that brown paper that comes in your Amazon packages? We save that throughout the year because it makes the perfect base for a lot of fun gift wrapping ideas! It’s free and it’s a great way to reuse something that would otherwise probably just get tossed. Then, together we collect a bunch of greenery, pine cones, and whatever else catches our eye outside. (It’s also a great way to get your kids to prune the bushes for you. 😜)
Add a few spices, wooden beads, dried orange slices, and pretty ribbon, and you might just end up with something even prettier than that shiny paper from the store! Certainly something more thoughtful and eco-friendly. If you’re ready to get creative with some homemade gift wrap, here are 4 Christmas gift wrapping ideas with nature!
1. Clip greenery from your yard!
Fresh greenery is essential for the pretty packages we’re about to wrap! Head outside for a crisp walk or even just to the yard to get some clippings. I don’t know about your kids, but mine loves to get his hands on any adult tool that seems remotely dangerous, so he loved helping with this part. (No worries, we were safe. 😄)
*A quick note on the types of evergreen branches you choose: In the past, I’ve found that spruce and fir branches don’t work as well since those get brittle quickly and all the needles fall off. Varieties of juniper, cedar, and pine all seem to work well. (Pull out your handy dandy tree identification guide on that one if ya need to.)
Once you’ve obtained your greenery, set it aside for making the gift tags below! Or just tuck a small bundle underneath your ribbons after wrapping a package!
2. Reuse brown paper from packages.
I don’t know about you, but we get a ton of brown paper from our deliveries over the course of the year. Definitely enough to wrap all our presents on Christmas and birthdays, so I always set it aside to use when needed! I always liked the look of brown paper packages anyway, and after we dress them up with our other gift wrapping ideas, they’ll be perfectly festive!
3. Make gift tags with nature!
One of the simplest gift wrapping ideas is to dress up your packages with these adorable nature tags! They make any plain packages look festive and they’re so simple to make! Here’s what you’ll need:
- plain paper tags (we made our own with cardstock)
- twine
- elmer’s glue
- dried orange slices (here’s how)
- fresh evergreeen clippings (cedar is best since it lays flat)
- cinnamon sticks
- star anise
- small pine cones
- acorns
- dried rose petals
- wood beads
- anything else that suits your fancy!
Once all your materials are gathered, string the twine through your tags and add a wood bead if you want to make it extra pretty. After that, all you have to do is glue! Let your kids go crazy with combinations and see what beautiful works of art those little DaVinci’s come up with.
Adorable, right!? Not to mention these add the perfect personal touch to all your gifts. You know you’re an adult when you get more excited about the pretty packaging than potentially what’s inside. 😂
4. Dress up your plain paper with stamps.
The last on our list of gift wrapping ideas is super easy but adds a really nice touch! Just grab some winter or Christmas themed stamps and go to town on all that brown paper! The combo of nature themed black stamps on the paper looks simple but lovely.
There you have it! Have fun with these nature gift wrapping ideas and coming up with different arrangements! It’s so fun to offer gifts to people when the wrapping paper is unique and they can tell you obviously spent time on it.
Looking for some other handmade Christmas crafts? Try these fun 10 DIY nature crafts with your kids!
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