Recently, my daughter’s soccer coach and math teacher (she’s the same person) did my daughter a favor, and I told her that I would have my daughter make her cookies as a thank you. I think the teacher thought we were kidding, but that night I had my daughter bake a dozen chocolate chip cookies.

The next morning we were running around, trying to figure out what to put the cookies in, since a plastic bag seemed too ho hum and all the cookie tins I had were festive holiday and so wrong for giving a teacher gift. Instead, I dug into my school supply box (the place where I stockpile school supplies after I find them on sale) and pulled out an empty, unused plastic pencil box.

And voila, instant gift box for cookies for the teacher.

This got me thinking about other off-beat ways I like to package gifts, some of which I’ve discussed on the blog here.

• Put the gift in a reusable shopping bag. At $.99 each these reusable shopping bags are a bargain compared with the disposable and traditional gift bags. So why not go green and save yourself some green by using this very practical gift-holding solution.
• Find a basket you can use. It’s so easy to wrap up a housewarming gift in a cloth napkin inside a basket. Like school supplies I stockpile baskets that I can get dirt cheap, and either use them as props when I do a product table on TV or as the aforementioned gift holder.
• Transform something practical. I really love this idea of using a plastic pencil box to hold a teacher gift, and I think I’ll tap into this next year when giving gifts at the holidays.

What about you? What are some off-beat ways you like to package a gift?