• Use fabric and fabric scraps as you would paper
• Wrap a gift in a poster or full-page magazine photo
• Wallpaper makes a unique and sturdy gift wrap
• Use old sheet music or old calendar pages as wrapping paper
• Use kids' drawings or coloring book pages to wrap smaller gifts
• Wrap gifts for family in your kids schoolwork... particularly those A's!
• Scarves, tea towels, napkins, or handkerchiefs also make wonderful fabric wraps. The wrap becomes a gift, too! 
• If you are giving an antique or vintage gift-use a vintage box towel or scarf to wrap it!
• Reuse paper from last year
• Use colorful but outdated maps as wrapping paper
• Newspaper is great for larger gifts and comic pages are colorful!
  
• Use handmade papers made from paper scraps-see: Make Your Own Paper Instructions
  
• Plain brown paper becomes an excellent base for any number of homemade paper techniques
• Plain white paper on rolls (butcher's wrap works well) can become a great base for decorative techniques
  
• Use coffee cans, oatmeal boxes, kleenex boxes, chinese food containers, tin cans or cereal boxes covered creatively
• Make boxes from cereal and food boxes turned inside out
  
• Use store shopping bags and add drawings or decorating
  
• Use your practice paintings as wrap!  Particularly calligraphy, handwriting or watercolor looks nice
• Cut out colorful magazine pictures and glue them on plain papers with craft glue, or make cutouts and glue them on
• Stamp plain paper with colored ink or scribble and draw with paint pens 
  
• Decorate with used holiday stamps and greeting cards

Bow Alternatives:

• Instead of bows decorate with natural items such as pine cones and pine sprigs or ther natural objects
• Instead of trimmings use buttons and beads
• Use an ornament or toy instead of a bow
  
• Fold an origami object instead of a bow--such as an origami star
  
• Make your own name gift tags with old cards or scraps of wrap
• Instead of ribbon use gift wrap scraps to make a bow

Have fun! Be creative