Simply Green Giving: Create Beautiful and Organic Wrappings, Tags, and Gifts from Everyday Materials

by Danny Seo

Danny Seo's brand Simply Green is a way of living that embraces certain rules–Be Authentic, Be Resourceful, Be Simple, Be Unexpected, Be Truthful, and Be an Individual. In Simply Green: Giving Danny takes these goals and creates projects that are both thoughtful and sustainable while still being stylish and beautiful.

The book has 50 quick and simple projects to create beautiful gift wrapping, tags, and handmade treasures from everyday materials.

Projects include:



Recycling oversized gift calendar pages turned into gift wrapping

Old silk flowers reborn as stunning flowering bows

Luxury store bags turned into personalized gift bags

Jazzing up boring gift store cards

Making organic soy treasure candles

Genres: Crafts, Nonfiction, Green, Holiday, Inspirational, Ecology, Reference

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[♡ venus ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, the only thing that really stuck out to me was that this was bougie as hell, lol.

I'm rating it a three because I didn't hate it, and I didn't feel like reading it was a total waste of time, but to be honest, most of these ideas were just not feasable or applicable for most people. Sure, the homewarming gift box, the mimosa kit, and the thrifted vintage jewelry box were kinda cool, but the rest were either too cheap-looking to substitute actual ribbon and paper, or were too complicated for most people to actually do.

The thing that irks me very often when it comes to books like this is that to truly replace modern conveniences like wrapping paper and ribbons with sustainable alternatives, it's not enough for an idea to be creative or interesting. It also needs to be accessible and, most importantly, more convenient. If it's not easier than the alternative, it will never catch on in the mainstream. I honestly feel like the purpose of this book was just to make a quick buck off of bored suburban moms.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply delightful!

Love these ideas and the overall premise of this book. Use real peanuts for shipping? That's fabulous! Mr Danny Sep shows us it's really not hard to make a present look nice without spending more money and killing trees.

[Tessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some clever ideas in here (such as the greeting card village and luminaries and using old VHS tapes as ribbon for gifts) but Seo's smug tone annoys.

[Darby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book better then the party book. Again I really enjoyed the photos/styling of this book. He really hits the concept to reduce, recycle and reuse over and over. Some nice ideas about reusing household items or getting items at thrift stores to repurpose to wrap your gifts, make handmade gifts and gift tags.

I enjoyed seeing him make bows from the scented perfume cards in magazines. He tore them out very carefully. And then opened up the scented edge. He cut 1/2-inch strips across the sheet, starting at the scented edge and stopping an inch from the end. Then you fold it up accordion style - neatly stacking the strips on top of each other. With a pair of sharp scissors take each strip and curl by pulling it over the blade. The quicker you pull it over the blade the curlier it will get. And then attach to gift. The colors and images on the bow turn into a bouquet of colorful ribbon.

He also used the same concept of curling ribbon by pulling VHS tape out of the plastic tape cassette. And he wrapped a wine bottle in newspaper leaving 5 inches extra on top and cut that into strips and curled also.

Some things I didn't feel looked great. He took an old string of christmas lights to tie around a package but I just didn't think it looked good. I believe it probably could have but I just don't feel it was styled right in the book. Something else I wasn't sure about was that he used the inside of silver foil part of potato chip bags to wrap gifts. He washed them of course and then wrapped so the silver was showing out. But I just wonder how someone would feel opening a gift wrapped in a potato chip bag? I guess if they knew you were going green maybe they would accept it but would they think you were weird? Does it matter to save the environment? I don't know. But I thought it was odd. It looked pretty in the book - just wasn't sure how someone would feel opening a gift wrapped in it.

Overall the book did give me ideas for wrapping and decorating gifts in more green ways. I think often people forget repurposing is a green option.

[Aishe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't often shop the Martha Stewart DIY section of the public library, but I came across this gem almost completely by accident. I went looking for a book to help me with zipper repair, found none, et voíla, my eyes wandered, and there you have it! I actually read this book cover to cover and would suggest it to all the crafties and environmentally-concerned people out there. Many of Seo's ideas are simple and innovative. While I would not go for all of them, I would go for a very many. Check it out! Give it a try. I am dreaming of hardware stores even now...

[Melissa Massello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Featured in 35 Budget Living Picks for National Book Lovers Day on ShoestringMag.com :

"Ever since meeting eco expert Danny Seo in 2010, this book has been my go-to resource for saving on holiday shopping and DIY holiday gift giving ideas, plus exciting ways to present them — like making eco-friendly gift wrap out of upcycled VHS tapes."

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several of Danny's ideas are great for reusing and recycling. I really liked the newspaper wine bottle covers, the reuse of shirts for wrapping paper, and gift enclosure cards made from unwanted business cards. Many of his ideas though were just odd or in my opinion "wrong." I couldn't bare ripping out the pages of a book to enclose a gift or embellish a bookcase. This book is worth a quick view from the library, but I don't think it is necessary to add to your library.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Danny Seo has some great ideas for eco-living, and I subscribe to his blog. This book has some ideas for projects to reduce the environmental impact of gift-giving. Not all projects are for everyone, and there will always be folks who want something purchased from the mall, but it's worth browsing this for some eco-inspiration.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun to look through, but most of the ideas were either obvious or too much work. I am not going to spend next fall making glycerine soaps with embedded Scrabble tiles to use as gift tags, much less unwinding VHS tapes for curling ribbon. I would rather be reading.

[Mallory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some unique and useful gift wrapping ideas.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another winner by Danny Seo! Where has this man been my entire life? He has such unique and easy ideas for creative gift "wrapping" and presentation.

[Geanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book includes great ideas for re-using things you might never otherwise think of. A definite read if you're interested in helping the environment by reducing waste.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of great ideas for the effective reuse of everyday materials found at home as gift-wrap!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Filled with a good amount of useful ideas and a few terrible ones (the gift card chain and the shredded CDs for filler. Shredded CDs are sharp!)

[Mathew Carruthers · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some really cool ideas in here, but there are several I could just never bring myself to try, such as cutting up a book to create a gift box.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cute ideas for wrapping gifts, also includes a few really cute gift ideas.