Creative Gift Wrap

I'm back in Charleston after back-to-back shower weekends in Madison. Had a great time at both and Adam and I got a ton of awesome loot! I've since logged some serious hours in the kitchen arranging the cabinets and admiring the fiesta wonderfulness!

I've suggested on our website that when someone gives us a gift, they attempt to wrap it in an eco-friendly way. From our website: "If wrapping a gift, please try to reuse materials such as newspaper, grocery bags, pre-used gift wrap, magazine pages...let your imagination run wild! If shipping something, there's no need to have it wrapped at all."

A surprising amount of gift-givers complied and some came up with great ideas I never thought of! Mrs. D used the original shipping box and decorated with the letters "RE" cut out next to a drawing of a bike. (get it - re-cycle! picture above). My mom used a Rubbermaid tub to hold a couple bulky gifts. (She was hoping I'd then reuse that tub to take more of my stuff out of her house...we'll see.) I'm also proud to share that Macy's gives the option to all registers to request no gift wrap on shipments - we happily complied.

I have to say, though, Adam's family definitely took the cake! His sister used old Purdue and Fire Recruit t-shirts to wrap boxes. His parents used a trash bag (which we later used to collect trash), tied with scrap fabric from the rehearsal dinner table runners, and finished with sunflowers left over from the rehearsal dinner centerpiece trial run to cover our new hedge trimmer. His uncles presented us with a well-used, slightly rusty, old grill in which a picture of our shiny NEW grill was housed. Mad props to the Suiter/Jones families!

Even with the efforts to reduce, we still managed to create a ton of waste. Unfortunately, Madison is running into some supply and demand issues with their recycling plant, so some of our waste ended up in the trash. (Good thing a large portion was second hand to begin with!) In better news, Charleston has recently EXPANDED their recycling program to include all numbered plastics, wrapping paper, and corrugated cardboard for curbside pick up. Their goal is to have 40% of county's waste recycled. I have to brag - Adam and I are running about 85% recycled/15% trash at the moment. :)

Everything that has made it's way to Charleston is being put to another use. Good boxes/tissue paper are being saved for future gifts and storage, packing peanuts were given to Qwik Pack and Ship on Daniel Island, and the rest was flattened, sorted, and set out to be recycled.

I'm going to get back to dish gazing now...