It's A Wrap (2009 Edition)

So this is another in the never-ending collection of holiday posts. Presenting, this year's homemade package wrap -- sewn bags! Here's the background. A few months ago my mother and I were in the clearance section of a fabric warehouse in the seedy, seedy Harry Hines fabric warehouse district or whatever you want to call that particularly unsavory sector of Dallas, and I saw this fabric on closeout special for $0.50 a yard. I bought six yards for -- no calculators needed -- $3 and planned to use it to wrap every small to medium sized Christmas gift. I did use it for every gift I gave this year with a couple of big box items as the exception. And I still have fabric left over. What really amazed me was how easy it was to sew them all. I didn't spend a lot of time ironing hems or pinning things, I pretty much just freehand sewed little pouches for every gift. I sealed them all with safety pins and then attached ribbons. Pretty simple, eh? My favorite part is the green factor... During the year, you can use the bags to store breakable Christmas ornaments and during the holidays, you can reuse them to give new gifts away. My dad has already decreed that from here on out, the ones I gave to him and my mom will only stay in the nuclear family so they can get maximum usage out of them. Considering that I didn't bother with pinning or ironing, I'm serious when I say I think I got a run for my money in terms of time. A couple of bags in, I'm pretty sure I was sewing cloth baggies as fast as I could wrap a paper package.

If you are in the mood to make your Christmas a little more green or sustainable or you would rather hoard wrapping paper for more fun uses than just as package covers, give this option a try. I'm not one who puts too much stock in carbon footprints (or carbon pawprints as far as my cat is concerned), but perhaps I was able to balance out live tree with the cloth wrap? The point for me was to do something that was unique and fun, to try out a new idea and to make something worth keeping.

Also, there's no coincidence vis a vis the Longhorn package topper (above) and today's date. One last plug... Texas Fight!

Finally, don't judge the sparkley red leopard print tree skirt. I bought that fabric to use for Beta/Theta toga party (feel free to judge on that) but I never got around to wearing it as a toga. I've dutifully kept the fabric for years and it fit perfectly as a makeshift tree skirt. So exotic and classy...