Report from NYC: Green wrapping paper

With the recent explosion in wrapping paper design, there are more and more eco-friendly wrappers out there. I'm a hoarder of beautiful paper - like this eco-friendly design of Russian dolls that I found at Area kid's store on the weekend. It's part of the 'Good Life' range from NineteenSeventyThree, which went green this year.



This paper is made from 100% post-consumer waste, recycled material and pulp from certified forests with replanting programmes. They use vegetable-based inks and cellophane bags that are compostable and biodegradable. Now that you know the science behind the product, let me blow you away with some of their fabulous designs. Hold on to your Martha Stewart craftkit!

These bodacious computer graphic-inspired papers are made by eBoy, a graphics collective comprising Steffen Sauerteig, Svend Smital and Kai Vermehr.




eBoy has a number of other credits to its name: the cover artwork for Groove Armada’s new album Soundboy Rock and partnerships with Adidas, Microsoft and Paul Smith to name a few.



Catalina Estrada's papers are what you'd see if you walked into the woods on acid and looked through a kaleidoscope.


Catalina draws on the colours and patterns of her native Colombia. She also has a client list to knock the crocheted socks off any Hallmark card-buying granny (sorry, Gran!) - Sony Music, Nike, Custo-Barcelona...


The graffiti-esque doodles of Jon Burgerman could even stun a kid into waiting, like, maybe three extra seconds before ripping into his birthday gift. Jon's playful designs have also appeared on snowboards, cushions, colour-it-in wallpaper and toys.



I like to think the design above is a depiction of what ensues at the kid's party after all the presents have been opened: mad post-sugar mayhem!

There are a number of other eco-friendly wrapping paper options out there, including Fish Lips Paper Designs, which has a lot of info about recycled paper and even suggests the 'Top 10 Ways to Re-use Our Papers', giving new meaning to the term "it's a wrap!"