Craft Thursdays: Recycled Calendar Wrapping Paper

Kerry Hammond is here today to tell us about a new use for your old calendars.

This craft is about as easy as you can get. It requires no power tools or sewing machine. If you can wrap a present, you’re all set. Last week I was at an event at my local Tattered Cover Book Store. As I sat there listening to the speaker, my eyes were drawn to a corner shelf of 2016 calendars, and the huge 50% off sign. The calendars I could see from where I sat were full of beautiful vintage drawings and I thought to myself, too bad I don’t need another calendar.

Then my mind started to wander (the speaker was really good, I swear) and I wondered what else I could do with an outdated calendar full of vintage scenes. The first thing that popped into my head was wrapping paper. So……

Materials

An Old Calendar (or new one)

Scissors

Tape

Extras: ribbon, bows, embellishments, tags

Step One

The calendar pages aren’t the largest, so they really work best for small gifts, like maybe books! Choose a page that fits the book you’re wrapping. If it comes up short you can cut the excess on one end and use it as a filler piece where you come up short. Or you can combine two different pages to make it more of a collage.

Step Two

Use your wonderful wrapping skills to wrap the gift. The calendar pages are quite thick, so make sure you use enough tape so that the sides don’t pop open or you might ruin the surprise.

Step Three

Embellish until your heart’s content. I like to use old keys and other metallic items to spruce up packages, but you can really play around with the things you have lying around. Old buttons work great too.

If you look closely, I even matched the books I was wrapping to the paper. I used vintage food posters for a cookbook and vintage sheet music for A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander. I don’t think I’ll ever throw away a calendar again.