Environmentally Friendly Gift Wrapping

The holiday season is well underway and I don't know about you all- I love beautifully wrapped gifts, but as I stare at rubbish bags filled with sparkly paper, tape and ribbon, I think there must be more environmentally friendly alternatives.
Let me introduce to you all...the Japanese art of furoshiki.

Furoshiki is when you take a square of  cloth to wrap an object or objects to make it easier to carry or just to look nice. One advantage of these methods is that it's incredibly easy to wrap odd shaped objects as well as multiple objects.

Environmentally- I used old sheets, no tape, no ribbon, and they are washable and re-useable!

I started by cutting some squares of cloth in a couple of different sizes and preparing them for some tiedye techniques.

I then put them in some plastic and glass containers and used the same low immersion dyeing technique I used in this blog post

I used Colourcraft Ltd. olive green and scarlet.

  Oops how did this get in here?

 Here are the cloths as they are drying- pretty as is! But I wanted to add a bit more.

I got out some Aztec metallic paints, a Gelli plate and some wooden stamps.

Here are some details of my results!

I then poked around the internet and found this link  for some clear directions. They mention 45 cm squares, but when we make our own, we can make them any size we want!!

I'm sure I'll get better at the wrapping techniques with more practice.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Enjoy your holidays and don't forget that taking time to do something creative is a great way to deal with holiday stress.

Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint

fabric paint opaque

Rubber Roller

Gelli plate set round square triangle