PROJECT > MOMENT > 001-04 CONTAINER

There are only two parts to a gift. The container, and the contents.

And the container usually doesn't get the respect it deserves.

I'm going to be going over different types of containers, how they can be as impactful as the contents, and how to be a bit more sustainable about it.

I think containers should fall into one of these categories: something that the receiver would want to use actively, something that can reused, or something that can be recycled/composted.


Standard commercially printed wrapping paper is peak waste. I'm not an ultra conscious zero waster - but fuck is wrapping paper just completely useless. Time, emergy, and resources poured into something that just gets tossed.

The alternatives aren't flawless either, but they have a better track record than wrapping paper. Which is a low bar. A few alternative bases could be:
- wooden boxes
- storage boxes
- toyo/trusco steel boxes (if you have the cash)
- untreated kraft paper
- cotton fabric (furoshiki)
- reused cereal boxes
- newspaper
- paper grocery bags
- reuse wrapping paper from an old gift
- pringles can
- pasta/pickle jar*

If you can't get something new like a wood or storage box - you can always repurpose an old shirt or even food containers. There are tons of resources online on repainting food boxes and cheap diy to turn a shirt into a tye dye furoshiki. It's also a great opportunity to decorate or color it to match the theme of the gift. *Except for food jars. Make sure you got a good read on the receiver, some people see them as just trash. Especially if they have a brand embedded into the glass.

For decorations, I like getting inspo from pinterest. I found a shop does a a lot hand packaging (usually more aesthetic focused rather than sustainablity focused - but inspo none the less.), they are on instagram as garuma_.
Their often have shipments wrapped up in kraft paper, have some image cut out, and then wrap it in twine. Maybe it says more about me, but I was instantly enamoured when I first came across them.

My favorite being this donkey one. I would link to the original post, but just after I made an instagram account last week, it got suspended for no reason. Awesome! I love all facebook related sites and apps!

You could definitely give another life to some old magazines, or even stickers (don't stick them to the base, just have them there). I'd stick to untreated cotton twine, and dye it as needed.

Personally, I'll be using moment as an excuse to get into carving handmade stamps as well. I found a blogspot of someone who has been making one stamp a day for years, and they wrote a ton of tutorials on it. The blog stopped updating around 2017. They actively post on their facebook and insta, which of course you can't see more than a few post without logging in <3. Thank you meta for that <3. I'll make a separate entry on my journey with those.

For the most part, it would probably be a good idea to really think about drawing on/stamping on designs directly to the container if it's meant to be reused. The receiver may not fuck with it in the long run. As always (taps the sign) you can't control how they feel about anything in a gift and shouldn't hold a grudge if they don't love something.

I think an exception would be letters/snailmail! Letters are way easier to hold onto for keepsakes. I'd draw and stamp on a letter with no filter, but would ease up/be a bit more considerated on a wooden box of some kind.

That's about it. I feel like you can get the general gist of what I'm trying to get across. I'll be working on some concept sketches soon to see more of what my thinking process is in action.