Just wondering if I am the only person who collected all the gift wrap off of the gifts and brought it home to craft with later?  I plan to make cards, ornaments, scrapbooks, and even knick knacks.  What are you planning?

april

Wrinkly rumply tissue that can't be ironed will become shreds for gift bags. 

Plain (undecorated) gift bags will be reused.  They can be decorated by enthusiastic children!

Gift boxes go in the box of gift boxes, again for re-use.  Plain ones can be decorated in any number of ways, including wrapped with fabric for a box that can be used for several years.  That way, you just need to put on a fabric bow.

Fabric ribbon is made into bows and will be reused year after year.  Wrinkly ones will be ironed and put on rolls.  If there is no cardboard roller, this is a good place to put the roll on a dowel and also to use a pinch closure from a coffee bag -- clips would leave marks.

Not a lot of gift wrap here to salvage but I did save all the boxes and bags to be reused.  Saved as many bows as I could to also reuse.  Tissues paper that can be ironed will be and I also use the wrinkley ones to make bag and basket filler.  When I open my Christmas Cards I'm always on the look out for the envelopes that are lined with foil or patterend paper.  I save those and reuse them when I make cards.  I also save the postage stamps from mail that I get and use them in my card making. 

Shellia

I don't usually save giftwrap, but I do save the pages from 1-a-day calendars and turn them into stationery.

 We put a big garbage bag in the middle of the room when we're opening our gifts and everyone tosses the wrappings into it. I take it downstairs to my storage area and sort through it a few days after Christmas, salvaging ribbons, bows and wrapping paper that can be reused. I iron some of it, save some small scraps for wrapping small gifts and making envelopes, then throw away the rest. It used to be that the colorful pieces (not foil, plastic or shiny in any way) can be thrown in small wads into a fireplace where they color the flames. I don't know if it still does because I don't have a fireplace or wood stove now. 

I save Christmas cards and turn them into small boxes.  Usually I just make 1/2 of box really using the top with the pretty picture and the bottom gets trashed unless I actually need a box.  The box top gets ribbon taped to it and turned into an ornament.  I made only 7 this year for my Uncle's tree since DD was responsible for the decorating.

I make boxes from cards.  I remember doing it as a kid with my grandma, but I rediscovered it when my DD got a "rainy day book" from Chick-fil-A in her kids meal.  I typed in "make boxes from greeting cards" into a search engine and there are some sites with step by step instructions and pictures.

The big difference between the ones online and the instructions in the book is that the book is simpler, IMHO.  It uses square paper, so there is no cutting except to get it square.  And square paper is infinitely easy to get ahold of b/c origami popularity has grown.  So, if you were short on paper, that's one easy way to get some already square. 

Anyway, what I do is take the card and split it at the seam.  My cutter for scrapbooking has rulers all over it, so I make it square and center the best part of the picture.  Then I just have to fold it and, voila!, a box is created.  I make a loop out of ribbon and tape the knot inside the box and hang it with the picture showing.

I make those type of boxes all the time, and use them for ornaments!  In fact, last year, during the after holiday sales, I bought some cards just to make those boxes.  I was just wondering if I am very weird or only a little weird. . .

I saved some striped wrapping paper from a friend's birthday party and made some bracelets from it.  These are part of her Christmas gift from us this year.  I am also making a fan ornament from the same paper as part of her gift.

april