by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Stunning cotton giftwrapping that you can use to wrap gifts, carry shopping or wear as a scarf! 100% cotton, there's eight gorgeous designs to choose from, £3.99 from www.evergreenwrap.com
They both decided to create the Evergreen Wrap because, as Bellas says, “Well, of a few good reasons. I loved running my own bakery and creating lovely fresh loaves of beautiful bread, but I worked silly hours (getting up at 2 AM everyday and on the weekend), and I spent most of my time head to toe in flour which was lovely smelling, but just a tad tiring. We wanted to find something we could do together, which would give us a creative outlet, but would also make a difference to our world.”
They then stumbled across an article about the ancient Japanese art of wrapping gifts in fabric which is not only a stunning and easy way to wrap gifts, but because you don't throw the wrap away afterwards, it is also incredibly waste reducing and environmentally friendly.
Over 60,000 tons of gift wrapping paper is used in Britain at Christmas time alone, of which the vast majority ends up in land fill sites because of the poor qualities of the foils and finishes used on the paper mean it cannot be recycled. In fact, most of the foil type of paper cannot be recycled anyway as, in most cases, it is a laminate.
And this is all rather shocking. It is the equivalent to 11,000 trees being torn up each year at Christmas time and then binned.
Therefore Bell and Hugo made the decision to make our beautiful Evergreen Wraps and change the way we wrap goods. Bella shut up shop, Hugo hung up his suit and they both got ourselves a studio in London to start designing their first range.
“We thought it really important to design our own range of Evergreen Wraps as well as to use young UK designers, as we want to give them a platform onto the high street,” said Bella.
Which is why they have eight different designs, ranging from flowers to bicycles to animals and dresses and they decided to make them out of 100% cotton as they thought it was important that they feel lovely, as they want their Evergreen Wraps to be worn as scarves afterwards.
And this brought Bella and Hugo to their next business decision. As their Wraps don't get binned like paper they make a wonderful marketing tool for companies which use inhouse gift wrap. Thus they now m ake bespoke gift wrapping for companies and weddings and are actually producing some for Artisan du chocolat, so their customers have gorgeous chocolate wrapped in a gorgeous bespoke Evergreen Wrap they can carry home and use again to wrap gifts, carry their shopping or wear as a scarf!
“It is very scary setting up your own business, especially as a young couple that live, and work together! But it works – it must be – he's just proposed!” Bella told me.
For further information see:
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'Reusable, because anything else is rubbish'
© 2011
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