Isn’t it wonderful to open a Christmas gift that delights you, even at first glance, with how beautifully it’s wrapped? We all love that experience and today, dear readers, we are going to share how to SHIP your gift in ways that will make it very special for your recipient, the minute they lay their eyes on it on their doorstep.
As you can see from the helpful graphic above {and you will find some more information on shipping below }, there’s still time to ship your gifts so they reach their recipients on time.
This handy comparison chart between the services and pricing of USPS, UPS and FedEx prepared by Dan Diclerico of Consumer Reports, will help you even more -especially now that Christmas is so close!
So, what can you do to make the experience of receiving your shipped box even more special?
Ready?
SELECTING THE SHIPPING BOX
This year, USPS’s Priority Mailing Box looks like this and it is free. If you like them and would like to use this, you can order them online, here.
We also found a wonderful company on Etsy, this one, that makes custom shipping boxes with any photo or design on them that you would like to use. It might be a little late for this now, but it’s good to keep handy for Christmas in 2015.
You have to order them in quantities of 25 and you can order in many different sizes, but if you have a gift to send your clients or customers, wouldn’t it be fun to be the recipient of a shipping box with a special design on it like this or your logo or maybe a close up photo of a tree or room detail you designed for their home – or maybe both?
However, if you only need to buy a single shipping box,
Here is a resource for you. And we love that they ship FedEx next day and that they have an 800 number:
1.800.745.8800
The company, Paper Mart, makes the colors you see below in corrugated shipping boxes, sold by the individual box, or in groups of 10 and up in quantity if you’d like a break in pricing.
Here’s the pricing + sizes so you can see if any of these work for your Christmas shipping needs. We like the gold ones , which color do you like best?
Now, you need some pretty packing tape, right? Do you know of TapeSwell, started by a former stylist that could not find any pretty packing tape that she liked so she invented her own line of it? Her patterns are printed on transparent grounds, so you can use them in lots of different ways – by themselves or as decorative elements on top of wrapping papers you like or just to seal a box, as we did this Christmas.
There are, of course, lots of tissue papers readily available that you can nest your gift in + all sorts of pretty sprinkly, crinkly things to buffer them properly and these extra touches insure your recipient feels the wonderful spirit of Christmas even before they unwrap that pretty gift that made its way safely to them inside!
Our favorite source for beautiful tissue papers is Caspari, and you can buy them all online, here.
We buy The Container Store’s crinkle-cut paper shreds, here, to cushion, [ although UPS provides their peanuts for you, for this purpose, if you have them package your gifts for mailing ] from our favorite Texas headquarted store,The Container Store.
They expand well and have such a festive. clean texture to them and, if your recipient wants to save them to re-use for next year, they can. They are 2.99 for a 3 oz bag and mixing the colors of red and green or red and white together makes for a pretty presentation when someone opens your special shipping box.
If you don’t have a Container Store near you and no time to buy online, there is a pretty substitute available at Paper City stores, that is shiny and lovely, in red + green and it is 3.99 for the 2 oz bag.
Here are a few extra shipping tips from UPS:
1. Don’t use duct tape to seal seams on a shipping box. It does not adhere well and the sticky residue gums up their automatic machines, sometimes delaying your gift.
2. Take all the batteries out of your gift before you ship it.
3. Make sure your gift has at least 2 inches of packing material all the way around it.
4. UPS only guarantees against breakage for gifts that have been packaged by their associates.
So, now that you have your pretty package all ready to ship, what might you need next? Photo.Stamps.com – if your package is flat.
If your package is, indeed, a box, did you know you can customize shipping labels, too, with a special message + image? Yes!
However, for your flat packages, here are some of the pretty options from Photo.Stamps.com.
So, now that you have your beautiful gift beautifully and safely packaged for shipping, you need to ship it, right?
UPS and USPS and FedEx offer at-home pickup, as long as your gifts are all ready to mail, but only UPS & FedEx will wrap your gifts in a mailing box, if they are brought into one of their brick and mortar locations. Need to find a UPS location in your local area? Click here.
Be aware that UPS has several different kinds of locations, so if you need them to wrap your gifts for mailing, be sure to choose only a UPS Store or Customer Service Center versus a Dropoff location.
The United States Postal Service gives you some distinct pricing advantages, though, as shown below.
This is a handly little graphic from our friends at The Container Store.
And, lastly, if you’d like to make all kinds of custom labels for the packages that you are going to ship, click the image below to watch the wonderful HOW TO video from Avery Labels. It’s so easy!
We hope today’s post has been helpful to you and if you have special shipping tips for our readers, please feel free to leave them in the comments!
Thank you, as always, for reading and subscribing to Hadley Court.
We appreciate you.
HAPPY SHIPPING!
~~~
Leslie Carothers
for
Leslie Hendrix Wood
Founder
Hadley Court
Decorator
Chancellor Interiors
Midland, Texas
Gracious Living. Timeless Design. Family Traditions.