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How to Save Money on Holiday Gift Wrapping – Frugal Gift Wrap Ideas

You don’t need to spend a lot of money on Christmas supplies to have pretty holiday gift wrapping. There are loads of ways that you can save money.

Some take a bit of time and others just take thinking outside the box. Plus, there are many items that we have around the home that can be added to the wrapping to make a creative holiday gift.

Keep reading for 10 ways to save money on holiday gift wrapping.

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Frugal holiday gift wrapping ideas

Grab a cup of coffee and keep reading to see my favorite ways to save money on gift wrapping during the holidays.

1. Buy on clearance to save money

If you are not a crafty type of person who can make your own paper and bows, then buying on clearance is the way to go. This takes some planning ahead or some luck in finding great sales.

Buying after Christmas is the best way to save. Just store to next year and you are good to go. I’ve bought Christmas wrapping paper up to 75% off after Christmas.

Buy Gift wrap and tags after Christmas to save2. Use sheet music for holiday gift wrapping

Smaller packages can be neatly wrapped with public domain sheet music images. They make the perfect wrapping paper for a gift given to a music lover too!

Add a musical charm or old piece of jewelry to the package and a homemade gift tag and you will have a lovely look for very little money.

Country Living Shows how pretty the finished product can be.

Sheet music wrap from countryliving.com3. Make your own floral bow

If you purchase wire-wrapped ribbon after Christmas, you can make gorgeous floral bows that look just fabulous on any large present.

The best thing about them is that wire-wrapped ribbon can be used from year to year.  Just stuff them into a box and then fluff up the next year. I have some that are 20 years old!

Learn how to make a floral bow.

Blue floral bow.4. DIY gift tags

Save old Christmas cards from year to year and cut out pieces of them to make gift tags for next year. The card below could be cut into several tags. 

Reindeer on red card with words Merry Christmas.5. Use plain wrapping paper

Plain brown wrapping paper is much cheaper than normal gift wrap. Buy a roll of it but then dress it up with anything you can think of.

Nice tags that you make from old Christmas cards, trinkets, pieces of old jewelry, and even greenery from your garden can dress up plain paper.

To make the design below just wrap green yarn around the package, and glue on extra buttons you have laying around. Put a little piece of garland at the top to make a star and you have a beautiful and cheap holiday gift wrap idea.

A creative holiday gift wrapping idea showing a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper, with green string wrapped around it to resemble a tree, buttons glued down to stand in for ornaments and a small piece of garland at the top to resemble a star tree topper.

6. Make use of old Christmas fabric

If you sew, save your scraps of old Christmas fabric and cut it into strips to use as ribbons. You can also buy fabric squares fairly inexpensively, or use leftover fabric and make really cute looking gift tags.

Just cut them into festive shapes and glue them to plain paper. Punch a hold and add some ribbon or use a fold-over tag, like these. Source: Pinterest.

Christmas fabric gift tags.7. Use cut outs

This idea from Martha Stewart uses plain brown paper with a cut out surprise. The extra color underneath could be made from inexpensive craft paper.

Just cut out half of the Christmas tree and fold it for a creative and super inexpensive way to decorate a package in style.

Bells or Santa hats are other easy-to-cut shapes that would work well.

 Purple and white tree topper on brown paper gift from marthastewart.com.8. Musical gift tags

This idea also uses sheet music as a base. Cut out festive shapes from sheet music and paste it onto a slightly larger plain colored cut out of the same shape. 

Great way to make really festive-looking gift tags at very little money.

DIY musical gift tags

9. Comic strips

A great source of free wrapping paper is the comic strips in your local newspaper. These are especially fun to do if your child has a favorite comic strip.

Just wrap the present in the paper and tie it with some colorful yarn at very little cost. Image source: Creators.com

Comic stips make great gift wrapping paper10. Road maps

Road maps are normally quite colorful and make wonderful wrapping paper for someone who loves to travel.

The only problem might be getting them to open them instead of looking at all the interesting locations.

Road maps make great wrapping paper.What have you done to save money on your holiday gift wrapping?  Please leave your comments below.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small commission from the sale, but the price is the same for you. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."