Zero waste Christmas?

At least a save waste Christmas?

Last night was an evening full of re-cycled fun!  Etsy and the Crafternoon Tea Club hosted an event which promoted the reusing of gift wrap and challenging our thoughts and practices of what makes a gift giftable.  We were invited to bring a something/s that we have been given/don't use and to wrap it creatively to give to someone else.  The lovely Becky of Crafternoon explained that there is enough wrapping paper wasted in the UK every christmas to cover the island of Guernsey!!  I'm not so sure that the residents would like that very much, so I'm all for trying to make my waste not wasteful. 

This event was completely up my street as I've been sticking to my Thrift Pledge since I made it at the start of this year, not gifting any new bought gifts.  Although I've not blogged every step, I have been making them.  And this Christmas, I don't want to buy any new, just make and re love to others.  :)  We can use scarves as wrapping too, I bought a handful in October to do this, and am really looking forward to learning some furoshiki Japanese style wrapping.

So after work yesterday, I met with my oldest and dearest friend Becci for some crafting joy.  We were amongst the first crafters to arrive, so we were kindly shown where the drinks were and then sat down at the huge long crafting table laden with supplies and wool and stamps and lots of old french comics and embroidery magazines.  Mince pies too!  Here is Becci demonstrating the delights!

 

There were music sheet books and old magazines for us to re purpose and use as wrapping or even to create gifts with.  I chose to hole punch some amusing pages and then thread some wool through the holes  to glue onto my brown wrapping paper.  I then saved the punched paper to glue onto a little red shape much like I have seen the lovely TOKKETOK demonstrate.  I wish I had a hole punch to practice this a bit more, because I clearly need to, but it was fun.

I think my dotty top influenced my design ideas...

My gift was above.  Then we popped them all under the tree and dished them out to everyone!  The idea was to tell the story of the item inside and who it would be good for, and to shout out if it was the perfect gift for you or someone you know.  GREAT IDEA!  

I was very very kindly sent a parcel last week by Amy of Bits And Blobs full of dresses and things she was clearing out prior to her move to London next month, amongst it was a beautiful purple bag, possibly handmade by Amy?  However, it was the perfect re-giftable gift to assign to this event!  I wrote a story that it was a kind wicked witches bag that she'd made to keep her woodland party potions in!  I hoped that this would be a good description for the deep purple, sophisticated material that the bag was made out of.  It must have worked because no sooner than the description was read out, it was in the arms of a grateful recipient.  This really was the aim of the game in total, if you don't find a use for something, don't waste it, re gift it!  It's not any different to buying vintage clothing, in fact, it's better in most cases as the story can be passed on!

I came home with a gift very suitable for a certain friend and also a little something I decided sounded good for me, a lovely necklace, which I wore today and got a compliment!  I really enjoyed re telling the story of last night and how I came to be the new owner!

It was a fun and inspiring night, thank you Etsy and Crafternoon for the wonderful gifts, mince pies, beer and laughs!  And thank you my dear friend Becci, for being great to have fun with!

More photos of the wonderful evening can be found here

Has anyone else planned a zero waste Christmas?  Any tips or links to ideas?  Really, we should be much more thrifty on the whole approach to gifts and the like.  Agree?