Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Packaging Perfection! Practice Makes Perfect!

I send a lot of weird-shape and weird-height items so if I don't wrap them well the packaging breaks!
Puffy envelopes work...but at .29 cents each, that eats into one's profits quickly! And one can only take patching up used puffy envelopes for so long.
This is what I do.
I take heavy paper and cut it to size (okay, I tear it, I'm lazy!). First I used up some old file folders I'd had for years. I never file anything, that's why my whole house is an artist's disaster! So use the useless items laying around, why not? When I ran out of those, I went down to the printer's to see if they had some heavy paper "off-cuts" that I could have. So far, I've been able to find something that'll work, and for free! (the original customer paid for whole sheets of paper, even though they were not all used up!) I've gotten sticker paper this way too, once they begged me to take it off their hands!
I tape my sold items to the paper and often add another sheet on top and tape it down. This unit goes into a legal size, #10 envelope. Again, I used up what I'd had around the house for years, I just bought a new box as they worked so well, but I bought in quantity so the envelopes were cheaper by the piece! So far, I've had no complaints of loss due to packaging problems. (the poor post master who ended up with millions of tiny, sharp watch gears on his floor for tugging the envelope out of the machinery-see below how I solved that problem too!)
These photos show you how I folded the paper from it's original size to fit the envelope. The tan paper only needed to be torn in half, the pink paper had to be folded two ways. I then tuck the product under the fold and tape the fold and product package down. (& enclose a small freebie when I can remember to do so!)
My post officers are so stingy with their "Fragile" stickers that I decided to get a stamp of my own made! I went to Tommie77 to get some stamps made. you would not believe how awesome these stamps are...and HAND CARVED too! Look how great my logo turned out? You gotta get one or two of your own! My finished package looks so professional...not bad for a stay-at-home-mom's business!

2 comments:

Nancy said...

Okay, you were not telling the truth about not being able to blog, were you? How did you get pictures in the middle of your text? I can never do that. Excellent post. Nancy

GrandmaMarilyn said...

Cool way to save money on shipping. I bought a whole bunch of small padded envelopes a couple of years ago and still haven't used them all since I didn't have the sales I had hoped for.