All made up
Give home made giftsDoers doing this DoAction have pledged to save: 4622 kg CO2
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Gifts are great! When they’re appreciated, that is. Sadly many of them aren’t. About 20%2 of presents given end up being unwanted, unloved, and thus unused – oh dear!
£2.4bn
is spent on unwanted Christmas gifts each year.1
But there’s nothing quite like a homemade present – isn’t that what mum always said?
Give a homemade gift with a personal touch rather than breaking the bank and wasting yet more resources.
Read on for ideas of how to reuse old bits and bobs to make a present that your friends will be sure to appreciate.
Why?
Resources
You can’t make something out of nothing. Each time a new product is made, we need to extract fresh resources from the earth – through mining, quarrying or tree felling.
20%
of Christmas gifts are unwanted and laid to waste.2
Be they clothes, books, films, electronics, or cosmetics, they’re all made from something, and something pretty precious.
Climate change
Greenhouse gases are emitted from every stage of the lifecycle of your household goods, from extracting, refining, transporting and processing the raw materials, right through to landfilling the finished product.
50,000 trees3 are felled each year for wrapping paper in the UK.
Love
Love your things, love your friends. Nothing means quite as much as a home made gift, or even a home made card. Especially if it’s made out of things that you’ve already given some love, that you’re reusing and re-loving.
How?
No matter how creative you are, there are endless options, you could make:
- a necklace or earrings by re-stringing old beads
- a bag out of an old pair of jeans
- a cushion out of old curtain material or other scraps
- a pin board out of wine corks
- a mix tape (ok, a playlist is probably more appropriate!)
- a collection of your favourite recipes
- a tetrapak wallet
You can also take at look at Instructables, a cool website that guides you through how to make pretty much anything!
Kirstie Allsopp is a well of ideas and inspiration for all things homemade, check out her great book, Kirstie's Homemade Home.
Want to do this action? Head over to our list of Doers to find someone to pledge for.
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