KAPARA's Upcycled Gift Tags and a Green Prophet Giveaway!

You’ve selected your gift (which is hopefully local, handmade, and made out of sustainable materials), you’ve written a card (hopefully on recycled paper), but the presentation still needs that extra touch?  KAPARA (also known as Viktoria Slutsky), runs a cute little shop on Etsy that specializes in upcycled paper gift tags.

When you are making upcycled paper gift tags, the possibilities are almost endless.  Unlike gift bows (which you can read a tutorial on how to make here), gift tags are, by nature, tiny little things, and do not require large areas of paper.  Gift tags can be made from cereal boxes, old envelopes, you name it (and you will later on… keep reading).

But Viktoria’s paper sources have a great story.  When Viktoria first became an Etsy seller a few years ago, she decided that she wanted to include cute, colorful gift tags with her sold items.  She decided to make them herself to reduce packaging costs, and conveniently had a neighbor at the time who worked in a printing house.  She asked her neighbor if they ever threw away cardboard or other papers, and sure enough the next day he brought home some leftovers.

This developed into her becoming the repository for papers from her friends, neighbors, and coworkers who bring her old calendars, postcards, maps, and other paper goods.

Now her gift tag obsession has created a whole other Etsy shop, KAPARA.  All of her gift tags are made out of high quality upcycled paper in a variety of interesting shapes.  And most of her materials are still sourced from printing house leftovers.

This brings us to our Green Prophet Giveaway…  Viktoria will bestow a sample set of a variety of upcycled gift tags (such as the one above) to the reader who comes up with the most creative paper source for future gift tags.  The possibilities are endless – this could be an actual physical source (like the printing houses where she currently gets some materials), or a type of paper that could be upcycled (like a map).  Please post your ideas in the comments section below and the winner will be selected and notified by next Friday.  While these gift tags may not be quite in time for Valentine’s Day, you can use them for your next gift (romantic or otherwise).

Be sure to visit KAPARA as well as Viktoria’s blog.

Read more about other paper upcycling designers and projects::

Tel Aviv’s Artists’ Market Offers Good Green “News” On Desy’s Newspaper Designs

Think Again: Transform Junk Mail into Beautiful Envelopes

Think Again: Strike Up a Matchbox Inspired Recycled Notebook

Author: Karen Chernick

Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.

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