40-Day Challenge Day 21

 

Inventory your mailing supplies including containers for baked goods and packing materials for boxes. Dry popcorn makes great packing material and gives your recipient (or the birds ) a nice snack. There are tons of other ideas on Pinterest for using what you have to keep everything snug and safe.

 

Listen …

When you need to pad a package, recycle whatever you can. Instead of bubble wrap and Styrofoam, use newspaper. If you or someone you know has a paper shredder, save a bagful of the shreddings. Use stale, air-popped—not buttered—popcorn and include a note instructing the recipients to keep the gift and give the popcorn to the birds.

Cut empty wrapping paper tubes to fit inside a box you are mailing. They cushion the contents but add little weight.

Cut a brown paper bag to accommodate the item you’re sending. Using heavy tape, seal around three of the sides. Slip the gift into the mailer, provide padding as necessary, and tape up the fourth side.
Don’t use shoe boxes for mailing because they tend to split.

If you use Styrofoam “peanuts” as a packing cushion, spritz them with an antistatic spray first.

The U.S. Postal Service says address labels should be legible from thirty inches away. That’s about an arm’s length.

Mark packages that contain breakables as “fragile” in three different places: above the address, below the postage, and on the reverse side.

Use filament-reinforced tape to seal packages for shipping. Do not use twine, string, or cord—they will get caught in automation equipment.

As you unwrap gifts this year, save discarded paper, ribbon, and packing materials to use as packing material for next year.

Enclose a piece of paper inside the box with the address of the recipient and yours as the return. Just before you seal up a box for mailing, sprinkle in some pine-scented potpourri. When your recipients open the carton, the whole room will smell like Christmas.

If you write the address directly on the box use a waterproof marker.

Mail early. Avoid the temptation or requirement to upgrade to a faster shipping method. It really hurts when the postage exceeds the cost of what’s inside.

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