Chatten Hayes

Special to The Oregonian

Ian Mahaney has a stereotypical "guy" approach to gift wrap. "My mom didn't like this," he says, waving a brown envelope that once held a Christmas present.

Mahaney's mom may be in luck next time. In June, Mahaney bought a small Seattle company, Lucky Crow Gift Bags, for $15,000, betting that the colorful fabric bags would move people away from wrapping gifts in paper that ends up in the trash.

"What I'm trying to do is create a replacement for wrapping paper without it feeling like a replacement for wrapping paper," says Mahaney, who moved manufacturing of the cotton bags to a Portland space at East Burnside Street and 15th Avenue. The former New Yorker moved to Portland a year ago and lives in Northeast.

Fabric gift bags, he says, are more than environmentally friendly. They can be used for lunches as well as gifts. They don't tear. And they're convenient for travelers taking gifts through airport security.

And, as Judie Miller, a Metro recycling information center supervisor, says, "Why spend money on something that only gets used once?"

It's too soon to say how much of a bite fabric bags will take out of the gift-wrap industry, which Hallmark says racks up $2.7 billion in annual retail sales.

At Lucky Crow, bags come in five sizes, priced from $4.49 to $13.49. The smallest holds soap or jewelry, while the largest could wrap a board game or bathrobe. Each bag has a generous length of grosgrain ribbon sewn into a seam for cinching the top closed.

Passing along the bags is part of the fun, says Michael Miner, co-founder of Wrapsacks, a four-year-old Spokane company and the industry leader. "It's really sort of reversed the social taboo of regifting things."

Fabric gift bags don't have a season, Miner says. "If you're buying a gift for one person for their birthday, you don't really want to pull out all that stuff" such as paper, tape, scissors and ribbons.

Kristen Ragain, Lucky Crow's founder, chose the name to reinforce the bags' year-round appeal. "I just wanted fabric gift bags to be as common as the crow," she says.

Before joining the gift-wrap business, Mahaney developed Access databases. He also has written 18 books for third-graders on topics such as science and extreme sports.

At Lucky Crow, he's considering adding an organics line. "In order to make them an even more sustainable product, I'm going after organic materials and recycled materials."

He also hopes to get the sacks, sold only online now, in stores soon.

"My goal," he adds, "is to use no packaging."