Reclaimed Paper Wrapping

This is a super basic Instructable for reclaiming interesting paper from old books and magazines and turning it into large sheets of wrapping paper. If you can use a sewing machine to sew a straight(ish) line, you can do this!

For this Instructable I used an old music book I found in the recycling. The binding was missing and so were a few of the pages, but for this project it was perfect. You can find good paper for this in broken children's books, atlases or other books and magazines that use a slightly heavier weight paper. I'd avoid weekly magazines and newspaper.

Reclaimed paper (I used a music book but an old atlas or encyclopedia or even a high quality magazine would work)

Sewing Machine (including regular weight needle, cotton thread and bobbin)

Scissors

Take two sheets of your paper and line them up on a matching edge. Sew straight down the edge using a straight stitch with as small of a seam allowance as you are comfortable with. I used about an eighth of an inch here and I wouldn't go below that. Backstitch to start and backstitch at the end to lock your stitches in place.

When you have two sets of two pages, line them up on a matching edge and repeat the sewing from step one. Go straight down the edge with a straight stitch with as small of a seam allowance as you are comfortable with. Repeat these two steps as many times as you need to in order to get the size paper you need.

Take a step back and admire your reclaimed paper! You can see here I sewed eight total sheets together (tips of my shoes for some size perspective). You can now use this to wrap up gifts and feel good about not buying wrapping paper! You can cut straight through the seams, just don't pull too hard as you wrap and everything should hold together. Happy gifting!