For postal sales I wrap in tissue paper, put in organza bag (often recycled as I’ve bought supplies in them) and posted in a small cardboard box(goes large letter).
Sales on my stall, small non-sterling items go in a velvet or satin bag, sterling goes in card giftbox.
I’ve looked into paper bags, but more as something with handles to put the others in. I’d rather not put items in basic paper bags as I feel it cheapens the item. The velvet bags are ideal to store jewellery in or can be gifted directly. Bags and boxes are in my corporate colours.
I wish my suppliers would be more eco. I’ll order multiple strands, each will come in a plastic sealable bag then in a small bubble-wrap pouch, then the whole order in a large bubble-wrap pouch and finally a plastic postal wrapper! I try to recycle the bubble-wrap for ebay sales and use the outers for bin liners. One supplier has just switched to bio-degradable sealable pouches, which is great. I reuse all of the pouches, often have projects ready to make in quiet times on a stall.
Apart from specialised cut stones, I will only source from the uk based suppliers.
I use biodegradable clear bags for my cards to protect against damp or wet. I use paper tape and I also have some biodegradable waterproof mailing bags for larger orders but only have one size as yet so anything larger is still sent in larger plastic bags. I still use cellophane bags for my watercolour artwork as I haven’t been able to find large enough biodegradable ones and I’ll have to trust that they will protect the watercolour.
My main problem is trying to replaced padded envelopes. I have some Jiffy green padded envelopes for my stones but I can’t use them for my cards etc as they are heavy and make the postage expensive. Although I am waiting for a compnay (can’t remember the name at present) to get some more new type of paper padded paper bags in so that they can send me samples, just hoping that they too aren’t too heavy.
I use all eco friendly recyclable materials for my packaging. It is all plastic free except the bubble wrap which I have to use to keep the products from being damaged as they are fragile. However, it is recyclable. I also use eco friendly materials to create all of my products. I am very careful about how I make my products and how I package them.
I use burlap bags for smaller items like bag charms and use tissue paper for all other items.
Hi Camilla, I’ve gone plastic free for all of my packaging - sadly I have less control over what comes into me from suppliers, so although I’ll try to use ones who I know use glassine bags rather than plastic baggies they are few and far between (although for my own kits which I sell on the other side all of my packaging is glassine or card), and I reuse all plastic containers for storage. I mainly post out in recycled or reused mailing boxes or ‘green jiffy’, and have switched to strong masking tape from sellotape as it’s then really easy for customers to remove the tape and re-use. I also have one supplier who uses corrugated recycled paper packaging, and uses enough to keep me going until the next time I order from them, which is brilliant. I’m also no longer using organza bags for less expensive items - they’re polyester, don’t break down and I’m worried about how they’re made so cheaply - I use pretty tissue instead and add a nice sticker. What I do need to do more of is to communicate with customers about how their particular order has been packaged so that I can help them then re-use. Need to think about that!
I have just ordered small cardboard boxes to send some of my items in, I can then stop using bubble wrap and just wrap them in tissue paper before sending. Luckily none of my items are breakable just like them to be protected against being squished
I’m a little bit more plastic free today - I’ve taken the plunge and changed over to “eco-flo” starch puffs to pack my lampshades instead of bubble wrap. They are biodegradable and dissolve in water, so now I just have to store them safely during this soggy weather.
We use the green eco bubble wrap and as you say it does bio degrade …except (as we have recently found out) not in the sea as the sea temperature is too cold for it to breakdown. We’re using recycled tissue and newspaper more and more these days.
We are really interested in plastic-free packaging, all our suppliers send us packaging in plastic, so we re-use as much as we can, we hope this helps, as we love nature and can see the damage plastic has on the environment.
I’ve not long opened my store and I’ve made the decision to use large letter cardboard boxes rather than Jiffy bags. It didn’t seem to work out too differently in cost. I’d like to do the same for packages when I get some sales!
