At home I’ve found a perfect Kris Kringle gift to take to a Festive Season Party. My gift is wrapped in paper I printed myself as I’ve no Christmas wrapping paper on hand. Some time ago I did a print making course and have many leftover prints. My prints are very bright and the one I’ve chosen is a of a sculpture in black on a pink and red background. It stands out and looks great. Awhile ago I wrapped a present I made for a niece in one of my prints. She loved the print so much she ironed out the paper and framed it. That was a huge compliment especially as the print was one of my “seconds”. This week I received an email from a bank, yes a bank, encouraging me to have a sustainable Christmas. To me it seemed as if the bank had consulted my family for advice given their suggestions were the way we’ve always done Christmas – use an artificial Christmas tree and plan better to reduce food waste. OK, easy tick those two things off. What stunned me however was the bank claiming that every year in Australia 150,000km of wrapping paper ends up in landfill. What!! that’s shocking. When I was a child we had to carefully unwrap our present, smooth out and refold the wrapping paper to be used again the following year. When I see wrapping paper ripped off presents, scrunched up or torn to shreds I suck in my breath and cringe. What a waste of good paper! Some wrapping papers are so beautiful and they are used just once. What a waste of resources; paper comes from trees. With some thought there are many different ways to wrap a gift. Once I even used a lovely tea towel as wrapping paper.
Living well on a shoestring 