Have you and your children emptied out this year’s ang pow collection yet? If you have, hopefully you’ll like some of these suggestions on what you can do with the children’s ang pow money.
Now that you have opened up the ang pows, do you have a lot of ang pow packets lying around? If you’re like me and don’t like to collect things which go unused, whether used or new ang pows, let’s find something useful to do with them.
If your child likes crafty work, then you can save some for them to make beautiful crafts. Some ideas will be shared below. Or, you can upcycle them and make them into useful things you can use, too. If arts and crafts aren’t your game, then you can choose to recycle them.
Below are some ideas on what you can do with used and unused ang pow packets.
How To Make The Best Use Of Extra Ang Pow Packets
1. Recycle Your Ang Pow Packets
Contribute your ang pow packets to the CNY Ang Bag Recyling Bin at Takashimaya. The collected packets will be shipped overseas to be made into fresh paper rolls or sheets, or combined with other materials to be produced into new products.
Another place you can drop off the packets easily is at DBS branches.
As many people are reluctant to reuse ang pow packets, and the fact that many organisations print new ones to give out every year, there’s much wastage and trees being sacrificed.
So before we take on more ang pow packets in the future, we may want to consider using up what we have first. Hopefully less of these packets will be produced yearly to safeguard the environment for the benefit of our children’s future.
2. Let Your Children Make Crafts Out Of Ang Pow Packets
There are endless ideas on what can be done out of beautiful and colourful ang pow packets. From easy crafts to more complicated designs, just take your pick at something that’s suitable for your child.
Keep them engaged and happy, making things with their hands. Let them showcase their masterpieces or have them gift them as handmade gifts to family and friends.
Use their proudly made crafts as a resources for causes that you and your family support.
Here are five fun ideas of ang pow crafts for children:
4. Cute God of Fortune origami
3. Upcyle To Make Useful Household Items
If you’re into DIY and making things is therapeutic for you, then upcycling the ang pow packets would be a great idea.
There are many helpful sites and videos online that provide step by step guide to making various things. Here are some ideas of what you can make that can be useful things in the house.
Here are six suggestions of beautiful creations that you can make:
3. Handy basket
5. Candy tray
6. Trinket box
Let’s Use Ang Pow Packets Wisely
Hope some of the above crafts will keep your children and your family entertained when making them together. And, hopefully they make good use out of your leftover ang pows from all the years of keeping them handy.
I didn’t have a big collection to start with as I’ve declined taking more new ones each year, and just use unopened packs from previous years. Even then, I still had plenty and decided to give them away two years ago when I was decluttering.
Let’s do what we can to use these paper products wisely as they do contribute to some environmental damage.