A linen napkin tied with twine makes a perfect wrap for a bottle of wine.

Wrapping gifts at the last minute, only to find no more gift wrap in the house?

The ReStore Home Improvement Center in Springfield has some environmentally-friendly ideas to use not only on Christmas Eve, but all year long.

ReStore, which recycles cabinets, doors, windows, bathtubs and other fine-quality building materials at a discount, has a small "ReWrap" display at its front desk that shows how to recycle paper products for that purpose.

Katherine Blake shows a greeting card made with the use of a rubber stamp as one of the "alternative" holiday ideas at ReStore in Springfield.

Need encouragement? Get this: "We generate about 5 million tons of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day," says Holly Miller Benoit, manager at ReStore.

People can cut down on that by dismantling used calendars with pets and travel scenes to provide glossy, colorful wrap for smaller presents.

Same goes for old wall posters of cartoons, movies or rock idols, says Miller Benoit. "Kids outgrow them," she says.

Leftover wallpaper? Beautiful gift-wrap. Comics, fabric, magazines? Ditto.

Old maps with frayed edges? Old gift-wrap? "Trim, trim and - boom - you've got half a sheet of wrapping paper," says Miller Benoit.

	A handmade card is festive with multiple layers of paper.

Other suggestions from her: "Buy gift bags. Almost everybody passes those on. And, if nothing else, buy wrapping paper with recycled content."

The ReWrap display was assembled by Katherine A. Blake of Chicopee, an AmeriCorps VISTA worker at ReStore.

OK, maybe people are not quite ready for another suggestion from ReStore: brown paper bags decorated with colored markers or rubber-stamped wreaths.

But everybody has to start somewhere.

ReStore is a venture of the Center for Ecological Technology (CET), a nonprofit agency offering alternatives through reuse, recycling and energy conservation.

Since opening in 2001, ReStore has almost tripled in size at its 250 Albany Street location in Springfield. CET is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

IF YOU GO
Name: ReStore Home Improvement Center
Where: 250 Albany St., Springfield
Hours: Tues.-Fri. 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Call: (413) 788-6900

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