Happy #SmallChangeTuesday! Today’s blog post started as Insta-Story, and then became an Instagram post, before turning into a full-on blog post. I've been taking part in Rebecca Flynn's #SmallChangeTuesday for the past two weeks (that's Rebecca of @Flynnfluencer if you don't already follow her). It's about making small changes in our everyday lives to help save our beautiful planet and posting them to Instagram to help grow a community and encourage other people to do the same. Rebecca has saved everyones's #SmallChangeTuesday ideas as a highlight on her stories, so check it out as there are so many ideas to be more eco-friendly that are really simple to put into practice and ones that I've never even thought of myself. This is one Instagram trend that I can totally get behind.
This week, my #SmallChangeTuesday is all about gift wrap. O.K. so this post is slightly Christmas related. Just because it's that time of year but really it can apply to any type of gifting occasion all year round. And let me be honest and tell you that I am not the biggest fan of all the hype that goes with this time of year, so I'm hoping this doesn't add to the festive noise that's already EVERYWHERE. But I think this is a good kind of Christmas post and hopefully not one that will make anyone fell crappy about themselves. So here goes.
Gift wrapping is now an official art form in itself. Forget about thoughtful presents, if they aren't gift wrapped to the max, they're just not worth opening! Picture the Rowan Atkinson scene from Love Actually and picture the reality of the whole gift wrapping situation going on in many a shop / home right now. There is almost as much attention to detail and artistry on display in the gift wrap as there is in many of the gifts themselves. A beautiful wrapped gift with ribbon is a sign of a luxury gift. But if we view luxury through a different perspective and think of it as moving away from excess and instead doing something worthwhile to help make the world we live in a better place, maybe we can do without the tissue paper, glossy paper and ribbon and instead choose to gift wrap our presents a different way.
Now I love buying real life magazines. The ones you can roll up on a sofa with and enjoy with a cup of tea. This leads me to my own little eco-ethical dilemma. I want to support the real magazine industry and the creativity behind it. But I get that when we can consume the same content online without the printing bill, this leads to a little bit of a dilemma. So finding a way to re-use these magazines as gift wrap makes me feel a lot more confortable with my glossy magazine habit.
Let's get back to basics! Gift wrap is about creating an element of surprise for the lucky recipient, so all you really need to do is wrap your gift sufficientsly to keep the true nature of the gift a mystry. And magazine paper can do this perfectly well and personally, I think it looks very cool too! There's no great mystry to this and it may be something you guys are doing already but instead of tossing your magazines, hold on to them and use the pages as gift wrap next time you have to wrap a present. And when a shop offers to wrap something, it's ok to say no to the beautiful gift wrapping on offer and do it yourself at home.
If you want to join in #SmallChangeTuesday, follow Rebecca Flynn on Instagram. She's at @FlynnFluencer and each Tuesday post your own small change to your Insta-Stories, tagging Rebecca and using the hashtag #SmallChangeTuesday. Then follow Rebecca's stories on Instagram to see what everyone else is doing and to get some new ideas yourself. Plus it’s always easier to do these things when you feel part of a community and movement and this is exactly that this feels like. So many Irish Instagram users are jumping on board the #SmallChangeTuesday train and how great is that to see.
