Whether one likes it or not, packaging is very important. I remember getting a parcel from my good friend Michelle of http://www.hmbm.co.uk/ (Hand Made By Me) - she makes lovely pieces from polymer clay beads - which was a bright pink shiny envelope, and getting so excited and happy just from the look of it! I, of course, like to re-cycle, so I often re-use the envelopes I get from other people: my jewellery bits and pieces, books etc. But I do pay a lot of attention to what and how I put inside. Well, of course, one doesn't want to go mental and spend lots of money on the stuff that will end up in a bin anyway, but your product has to be presentable.
I have been using these dark green boxy-things, made out of tough paper, you can open and close them on both sides. They were quite good, but not ideal: apparently, they wouldn't go through a letter-box, which is an important consideration for a lot of customers: when they are not at home, who is going to take the parcel from the postman? I'd wrap up my beads into white tissue paper, then into bubble-wrap, put them inside the green thing, wrap around some fuschia ribbon with a little dangly bit at the front - done!
But I have now run out of these. I went to Noblepac website, and the buggers have put their prices up! They obviously don't want to deal with little customers like me: if your order is less than £50.00, there is a £6.50 handling charge on top of everything else. OK, they can do without me then. So I found an alternative: http://www.bagnboxman.co.uk/, they do these little boxes which take about .1sec to put together and which look very smart!
So this is how my beads look now when they arrive: all wrapped up in white tissue paper, bubble wrap, inside a smart little box with my little Bead Mon Amour sticker on, with fuschia ribbon. I am very pleased, especially that these boxes are cheaper than the Noble ones were. AND they go through a letter-box!
This just reminds me that I need to spend some time thinking about my new logo for my new name: it's Nelli Rees Glass Art.
