Earth Day is Every Day

Tomorrow, April 22, is Earth Day. It was been celebrated on this day every year since 1970.

CELEBRATE IT EVERY DAY.

One easy way to cut down on your waste is to use recycled materials for your gift wrapping. Pages taken from magazines are glossy and often colorful, and you can choose content to match your gift recipient's taste. Rolling Stone, Real Simple and Interview magazines work well because their pages are larger than the average magazine and can cover more area. National Geographic, Vogue, and gardening magazines also have attractive pages that look pretty when they are holding in some sweet little gift!

The following photos are examples of recycled gift wrapping you can easily adopt for your own gift-giving. I made them for work at Half Price Books in Texas for their Earth Day display before I moved away. I would like to applaud Half Price Books for their ongoing efforts in reducing waste and educating the public about the importance of respecting the earth.





Did you ever think of using VHS tape instead of ribbon?? I got that clever idea from Danny Seo's book, Simply Green Giving, in which he hands out all kinds of neat ideas for greening up your gifting.

This is the little instruction card that is displayed with these gifts at Half Price Books, and it tells you how to wrap your gifts like this.



The candle paper on the black background is from an ad in Rolling Stone. The wine glass paper is from Wine Spectator. The pretty, bright paper with candles that has the instructions on it is from Real Simple.

If you don't have magazines on hand, you can get them really cheap at places like Salvation Army and Goodwill, and of course Half Price Books if you have one in your area. Check here to see if they are located near you. You'll be luckiest if you live in the midwest as well as certain western states. The highest concentration of stores is in Texas, where they began.

You can also ask the nice people at a local doctor's office or salon if they would like to give you their non-current magazines. They might not always be the prettiest and most colorful but hey, they could be free!

Finding VHS tapes is easy when you visit second-hand stores if you don't have the heart to pop open your old copy of Dirty Dancing or Short Circuit. I can tell you from experience that Half Price Books will be happy to sell you VHS tapes for CHEAP!