Growing up our family of five would spend many months at a time living on a 28’ gillnetter. Space was limited, but we were able to go to amazing places along the BC coast and see the most beautiful and spectacular things both in nature and the animals around us. This way of life gently molded me to become the person I am and allowed me to think about and see things that I normally would not have if we did not spend so much time living on the water.
One of the greatest things that I have learned is to be aware of what impact everything has on the environment. The little impacts that we don’t see and that we normally take for granted. When living on a vessel whatever you take onboard and leave port with you must bring back to port, meaning what garbage was made while you are out at sea you must bring it back with you. This always made us very aware of packaging and what we allowed on board. We would get our groceries in boxes instead of plastic bags and always purchase raw food for cooking instead of pre-made food whenever possible.
I can’t help but think of this as we move into the holiday season. Many years we would unwrap the gifts from under the tree or that we have been given from family and friends. The gift we cherish, and the wrapping paper ends up in the recycling or garbage. Bags and bags of wrapping paper used once and tossed out. This is something that I am aware of and when there is a will there is a way.
Being the manager of the home for so many years I discovered that if I prepared ourselves and our home for an event coming up everything seemed to operate more smoothly. And Christmas is a great event. Before birthdays and Christmas, we would get into the rhythm of going through the kids toys and clothing, cleansing out the spaces so it was more manageable as everything unfolded. I discovered a great way of upcycling the used t-shirts in many ways, and today we are going to talk about the t-shirt gift wrap that has worked its way into our holiday routines.
T-shirt material has a great amount of stretch to it, making it one of the best materials to utilize as gift wrap. It is simple to prepare, keeps the old shirt out of the landfill, can be folded up and used season after season and can be used as a shop rag when it is no longer used for gift wrap.
- You simply lay the shirt down flat on the table.
- Cut off both sleeves just on the inside of the seams.
- Cut up both sides from the bottom to where the sleeves were.
- Cut the top of the shoulders off, so you are left with two large pieces of material (one front and one back) and two sleeves.
- To turn the sleeves into pull string bags, turn inside out and sew on the inside of the seam where you cut off from the shirt. Trim the shirt seam off just behind the stitching.
- Turn right side and snip just a bit at the top of both sides (one on each side) on the outside of the sleeve.
- Thread through a string into the small snippet you just did and in and around the sleeve edge and tie.
- Bam…now you have two draw string bags and two large pieces of eco wrapping paper all from one t-shirt that you were not using any more.
To use the T-shirt wrapping you would wrap a gift as you normally would.
- Place the gift in the center of the material.
- Fold one side of the material up and over the gift.
- Fold in the two sides to the center of the gift, keeping the material taught as you go.
- Fold the last piece up and over the gift tucking in the end under the side fold of the two sides.
- Turn over and secure with string and/or ribbon.
When we first started doing this, we would utilize scarfs that we purchased at thrift stores as well for wrapping. But as the years have gone by our supply of t-shirt wrapping has slowly increased and we now are able to have most of the gifts that we wrap in eco wrapping throughout the year. It feels good not having bags of wrapping paper to deal with in the morning and knowing that the amount of energy saved to manufacture, ship and the monetary to purchase wrapping paper that will be utilized once and tossed, is reduced. Just one little act, that is all it takes to help make a difference to the environment and how we routinely live within.
Hope everyone truly enjoys their family and friends throughout the holiday season and into the new year.
Thank you and enjoy!