What do gifts mean and what do we want them to represent?
Usually gifts are about showing how much we love and appreciate our loved ones. Gifting therefore becomes an act of attention to others, care for others, and most importantly love. When it comes to gifts, it is not only the gift that matters but what is being passed on with said gift.
With what is inside the gift, you are showing the recipient how well you know them and how you pay attention to what they might want or need. The outside of the gift therefore should represent that mindfulness and care. At FabRap, we believe that the beauty of gift giving stands in stark contrast to the disposable nature of single-use wrapping. Love should be passed on in every single part of the gift, including the packaging.
In this blog post, we want to think about how reusable wrapping carries forward the love between gift giver and recipient.
The Ripple Effect of Small Acts
If you have known FabRap for a while, you will probably have heard our story. The reason why we love to keep telling it, is because it shows that sustainability can be a small and unconscious act that will eventually lead to big impacts.
FabRap's founder and CEO Hema Kumar used to be her family's designated gift wrapper around the holidays. Being of Indian origin, she grew up around fabrics in vibrant colours and unique textures, fascinated by their beauty. As a young girl, Hema would always wrap the family's gifts in fabrics.
She did not do this to be sustainable at first. She merely saw beauty in the versatile fabrics surrounding her and decided to elevate the holiday gifts with their unique designs. It was only later in life when she became aware of the environmental impact of paper and plastic wrapping that Hema realised she had been doing something impactful all along.
FabRap represents the wish to raise awareness for fabric wrapping, to make it accessible for all. Small acts, like wrapping in fabric scraps you have in your home mean being sustainable, often without noticing it at first. But many small acts lead to big impact and most importantly, small and repeated acts lead to lasting change.
Care That Doesn't End After One Use
If repeated acts lead to lasting change, how can we apply this to gift wrapping? Each year, millions of tonnes of wrapping paper end up in landfills and cannot be fully recycled. We believe that the care for our loved ones that is conveyed in a gift should be extended to our planet as well.
The tradition of gifting is such a wonderful one, it should not be harmful to our planet. Especially when there's such beautiful, eco-friendly alternatives. Allow your gift and its wrapping to carry the love and care forward, far beyond its first use.
The great thing about fabric wrapping is it's versatility. Wrapping food, gifts, or essentials is an act of care. Reusing your fabric as often as you can is an act of respect towards the planet and a practice of mindfulness and sustainability. Loving people means loving the planet they live on.
Packaging With Purpose
When we want to show someone how much we love them with a gift, the presentation becomes an important aspect as well. After all, it makes the first impression on someone when a gift is wrapped beautifully.
By wrapping in fabrics, the practice of gifting is slowed down and becomes more mindful. It shifts focus to the meaning of the gift and extends the possibilities of what it can represent. Each moment of wrapping and giving can become a personal as well as a shared story.
We want to encourage you to wrap with purpose. Create rituals around wrapping, storing, or gifting. That way, you'll turn small habits into heritage, slowing down consumption while wrapping with love.
The Quiet Kindness of Reuse
Reusability is one of the kindest and most caring things we can do, not only for ourselves, but also for the planet. By taking from the planet's resources only what we need and using it as much as we can until it has fulfilled its lifespan, we are quietly but actively making an impact.
To end this blog post, we hope that we could inspire you to think about what gifting means to you and how the love for others and the planet can be carried into gift wrapping, as well as many other aspects of life. Remember that nothing has to be about perfection or shame when it comes to sustainability! It is about finding new ways to enrich your life and the lives of others, by finding love and care in small and mindful practices like fabric wrapping.