海角大神

I don鈥檛 believe in gift wrap 鈥� at least not the kind that costs money.

I learned as a kid that gift wrap becomes trash the moment a present is opened, so paying for it is senseless.

So I鈥檝e gathered all the tricks that my mother taught me and that I鈥檝e picked up along the way.

Free wrapping paper

• Maps:聽Outdated maps 鈥� which is pretty much all maps nowadays 鈥� make novel wrapping paper, as do the map inserts that often come in National Geographic magazines.
• Magazines:聽Colorful magazine pages make unique wrapping paper for small gifts. Don鈥檛 subscribe to any magazines? Ask friends, family, or the local recycling center for their already-read issues. Just don鈥檛 steal from your neighbor鈥檚 recycling bin: Scavenging is illegal in some cities and counties.
• Old calendars:聽The big images on hanging monthly calendars work just like magazine pages.
• Comics:聽The funnies section of the Sunday newspaper makes great wrapping paper for kids鈥� gifts. Again, ask around for leftover newspapers.
• Newsprint:聽Other sections of the paper 鈥� from sports to classifieds 鈥� work too. Weekend issues often offer especially colorful images and fancy designs.
• Wallpaper:聽If you have leftover wallpaper lying around the house, it makes unique wrapping paper.
• Book pages:聽Do you own books that just collect dust because you no longer read or need them? If it鈥檚 too much trouble to sell or donate them, reincarnate their pages as wrapping paper. This is an especially great option for textbooks, which often become useless and valueless once a new edition comes out. Plus textbook pages tend to be more colorful.
• Phonebook pages:聽Online phonebooks like聽AnyWho.com聽have rendered their paper predecessors obsolete for anyone with Internet access, yet publishers still drop them on doorsteps for free each year.
• Old sheet music:聽If your children (or anyone else you know) went through a musical instrument-playing phase that didn鈥檛 last, their old sheet music makes unusual wrapping paper.
• Food wrappers:聽If you buy any foods that are individually wrapped and come in a bag (think Starburst candies, for example), save the bag, cut square or rectangular pieces out of it, and use them as wrapping paper. A bag that held foods like pasta or beans would also work 鈥� as long as the bag didn鈥檛 hold anything that would attract bugs (like brown sugar or potato chips).
• Brown bags:聽Cut-up brown grocery bags make sturdy wrapping paper.
• Shopping bags:聽Cut-up paper shopping bags (often used by mall-based stores) also work. If the outside of the bag is colorful, use it. If the outside has a logo or store name, use the inside.
• Used wrapping paper:聽Unless it鈥檚 torn to pieces when a gift is opened, wrapping paper is often left intact and unwrinkled enough to reuse.
• Homemade wrapping paper:聽Certain types of free wrapping paper materials, like brown bags, make drab gift wrap. But you can jazz it up with paint, crayons, stickers, stamps, or whatever arts and crafts supplies you have on hand. This is also a great way to involve the kids, especially if they aren鈥檛 yet coordinated enough to help wrap gifts.
• Fabric:聽Spare fabric and fabric pieces cut from old clothes can work as gift wrap if you fold it right. Google聽furoshiki, a Japanese folding cloth, and you should find directions for how to wrap just about any shape of object with fabric.
• Gift bags:聽If you don鈥檛 have any of the above wrapping paper materials lying around, use a gift bag.

Free gift bags

• Used gift bags:聽Gift bags can generally be reused several times before they show any wear or tear.
• Shopping bags:聽Certain paper shopping bags, especially holiday-themed ones, are nice enough to reuse as gift bags.
• Used tissue paper:聽Tissue paper naturally wrinkles when stuffed in gift bags. So unless it gets torn, it鈥檚 reusable.
• Tissue paper alternatives:聽Some of the free wrapping paper materials above also work as tissue paper.

Free boxes

• Used boxes:聽When you get a box in the mail or purchase something that comes in a box, save it if it鈥檚 a good size for gifts.
• Warehouse boxes:聽Wholesale warehouses like Costco and Sam鈥檚 Club give boxes away to customers. So, instead of picking boxes that fit your groceries, take boxes that would work best for gifts.
• Household boxes:聽Check your closets or kitchen cupboards if you need a box in a pinch. Many people stick empty electronics boxes in a closet, and even a cracker or cereal box would work. If you don鈥檛 like the shape of those boxes, you can resize them: I recently discovered a great blog post that includes step-by-step directions for聽resizing cereal boxes聽into more useful shapes.

• Used bows:聽When you receive a gift that has a bow in decent condition, save and reuse it. If it has lost its stickiness, use a piece of double-stick tape.
• Homemade bows:聽Make your own bows with free wrapping paper materials. How About Orange, the blog of a Chicago-based designer, has the best聽step-by-step tutorial聽I鈥檝e seen for making bows.
• Used ribbon:聽Ribbons are often cut when a gift is unwrapped, but if you open gifts carefully, you can sometimes salvage a long enough piece to reuse.
• Ribbon alternatives:聽Save longer scraps of string or yarn that you happen across. Even make funky ribbons too.
• Flora as accents:聽I recently stumbled across a聽blog post聽by someone who fashioned tiny evergreen branches into a mini wreath to decorate a gift wrapped in brown paper.
• Used greeting cards as accents:聽Save the nicest holiday cards you receive every year. Ones with colorful images or creative designs on the front can be cut in half so you can tape (use double-stick) the front half to gifts wrapped in drab materials.
• Used greeting cards as tags:聽The front half of fancy cards can also serve as gift tags. Write the 鈥淭o:鈥� and 鈥淔rom:鈥� on the black backside, punch a hole in one corner, and attach it with a ribbon.

Karla Bowsher covers consumer, retail, and health issues for聽Money Talks News, a consumer/personal finance TV news feature that airs in about 80 cities as well as around the Web. This column first appeared in Money Talks News.