Packaging My First Order {Small Business From Home}

Yesterday, I shared how I had designed my own vellum packaging and then found that my printer did not print vellum, the paper alternative I had chosen. Sigh. There is so much I don’t know. I think that I’ve done the research but, alas, I find I know little. But I am nothing if not creative and that extends to figuring out a plan B. So, as you saw yesterday, I stamped my own vellum to create some pretty wrapping paper. Yes, well, it turns out I needed a plan C. Join me today as I figure out an alternative and thoroughly enjoy packaging my first order.

Why Stamping Vellum is Not a Good Plan…

As I said, I do my research. I’d read that most modern printers take vellum, so long as you buy printable vellum. Which I did. Unfortunately, my modern printer is one of the few modern printers which does not even recognise vellum as a paper option. So I stamped. Here’s a picture to remind you:

Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn’t in colour, which I particularly wanted. But it did as a ‘for now’ option. I’d read a few blog posts about stamping vellum and the one thing they all said was to make sure you left enough time for the ink to dry.

I waited the 10-15 minutes. Unfortunately, I could see it was still very wet. I didn’t need to test it, I could just tell. An hour or so later, it still looked a bit damp. I didn’t test it out. Instead, I left it for a second hour. After what was now about 2 1/2 hours, I felt confident that it had to be dry by now? Right? Not so, as it turns out. When I tested a small area, I immediately smudged it. I really only had another 40 minutes or so before I needed to pack up the 36 cards the local shop had ordered.

I left it to the very last minute and sat down to wrap. It was a disaster! Vellum is completely non-absorptive. This seems to mean that the ink just sits on the surface, never really thoroughly drying out. Oh crumbs! What to do?

Packaging my First Order…Plan C

I really like vellum. It’s made of plant fibres rather than trees and it folds neatly. I also like the fact that you can see through it. I didn’t want to wrap my cards in tissue paper (which will perhaps be my Plan Z). So I wrapped the 36 cards in plain vellum, which my mother says looks like baking parchment…

There are so many things to like about this plain vellum. It’s simple, streamlined and un-busy. I like that you can see the designs of the card underneath. The invoice slips in nicely and I like the single sticker on the front. In fact, this is not a sticker (they are coming through today). For now, I simply glued my logo to the vellum.

However, I will order a small number of branded vellum sheets to see how I like them. I think vellum which has been printed on looks so attractive. It remains to be seen if vellum can actually be printed on without smudging at all, but I’m assuming the professionals will be able to succeed where I failed. Perhaps I’ll do a poll to see what wrapping everyone prefers?

Packaging My Second Order

Another order came in yesterday. This one needs to be posted, which means a slightly different packing strategy. I really like how this one turned out. The order was 11 cards in various designs:

With this order, I included a branded sticker as well as a free art print of the giraffes. The invoice I’d designed was filled in and an off-cut of the giraffe was used to decorate the postage box:

Even as a child, I loved organising stationary and pencil cases, so wrapping my own cards to send off to people is so enjoyable and incredibly satisfying 💕

I’ll be sharing how I designed my invoices tomorrow.