This has become my new favorite for wrapping gifts. My old favorite was butcher paper and I’m still a fan. But, like the old standby, vintage pattern paper is extremely versatile. Not to mention economy friendly!

I rescued this pattern for $.12–it was half price day on green tags at my local thrift store. You have to hunt around a bit and make sure you’re picking up patterns that haven’t really been used. The older the better. If you can find one in a French, ooh la la! But anything that hasn’t been too cut up will do–especially for smaller items.

You’ll want to separate out the directions and wrapper. Those can be recycled! And then give your piece of a paper a good press. I only press as much as I need at the moment, because you’ll just end up repressing it in the future. It attracts wrinkles like most tissue paper.

Then wrap your item like you would using any other paper. Except, you can be smug about it, knowing you didn’t spend but pennies to look this cool.

Then comes the fun! I’ve used scraps of paper and small things I’ve collected to wrap this same package 3 different ways. As you can see, it really is versatile. You’re only limited by your imagination!