Friday, February 12, 2010

Eco-friendly Wine Wrapping

Sometimes I get these little crafty ideas. Just a tickle in the back of my mind that goes and goes until I stop and think it through. And believe it or not, I'm not always in the kitchen. OK, this project basically took place in the kitchen, but it's not food related. OK, it is a little food related.

I'd gotten some unique champagne to give as a Christmas gift. Sure, you could just strap some ribbon around the bottle's neck, wrap it with real paper, or actually buy a gift bag. But this champagne came from that skin-crawling pit of despair, Trader Joe's. Double bagged in their stupid, weak paper bags. If they didn't have those slightly odd things that I sometimes need/want, it would have absolutely no redeeming qualities at all.

As the bottles sat in their bags, I kept thinking about how I was going to wrap them using the bags. I don't even remember consciously coming up with this plan; it was just, all of a sudden, how I was going to wrap these bottles.

It looks cute. Here's how you do it.

Step 1:

Gently pull the handles off. It's not hard, because they're crap anyway.

Step 2:

Cut down the seam of the bag, and then start cutting around the bottom. You'll stop cutting around the bottom when you reach the last short side. In other words, only one short side and half of the long side will still be attached to the top part of the bag, like so:



Step 3:

Put the bottle down in that little corner pocket, and fold the loose corner of the bag's bottom up. Here's where you "artfully" scrunch around the bottom and wrap the tall part of the bag around the bottle. It should be in a nice, long flap.

Step 4:

Tape where the wrapping ends to hold it in place. Then scrunch around the lower neck of the bottle, and either tape or tie a ribbon around it.

Step 5:

Cut about 1" thick strips around the top, down toward the bottle, stopping where the neck is taped/tied. It'll rip a little, and the strips will get soft and flappy because these bags are seriously worthless. I stopped cutting when there was just one layer of paper around the neck of the bottle, to kind of keep it concealed.

Final product:


Your environmentally-friendly friends will think that you've finally seen their way, and find you awesome. Your regular friends will think it's cute but will care more about the wine and why you're so cheap and lazy that you can't buy regular bags.

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