Halfway through this year I realized I was missing a huge opportunity. I had thrown out a few months of my Stendig wall calendar. What was I thinking? This was perfectly good paper I could use for crafting. I thought the calendar paper would work great as wrapping paper

The black and white colour scheme is my favorite. This year I wanted to make my wrapping extra thrifty! I’d rather spend money on gifts than the fancy wrapping. I decided to check out the Salvation Army Thrift Store to see if could find some wrapping toppers and ribbon. I very lucky to find both. It is amazing what people thrift. I found matching ornaments, bells, and ribbon on a very low budget.

Wrapping gifts is one of my favorite holiday activities. I put on Christmas music, spread out on the floor and go to work! Making a mess is part of the fun! I make the biggest mess I possibly can.

For tags, I ended up going to the dollar store to see if they had any options. I found great round black tags that worked perfectly. To update them slightly I switched out the beige string for the black and white string I had in my craft kit. It was a very affordable upgrade but made a huge difference.

COST OF STENDIG CALENDAR WRAPPING

• Black and white paper: Free (Stendig Wall Calendar)
• Ribbons, toppers, ornaments: $10 (Salvation Army Thrift Store)
• Tape: $2.99
• Black gift tags: $1.25 each (6 per pack – I bought 4 from the Dollar Tree)

TOTAL: $17.99

I ended up wrapping about 20 presents so it worked out to only 89 cents per gift. I think that is pretty good considering the cost of wrapping paper now .