Flowers and Packaging

When flowers were delivered, i figured they must be for Holly. No, turns out they were from Holly! They came from Stems, where she used to work. This is the video I made for her to let her know they arrived, and what they looked like. She couldn't see the video I mailed, so I might as well put it here so she can see it. The flower arrangement has been set in four places already. This time, it was on the table where we're working a jigsaw puzzle about cats.

The blue glass vase didn't show very well in that light. Here:



The Best of 2009 Continues:
December 15 Best packaging. Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

I love cardboard boxes, I do. There are a couple of things this year that struck me.

One was The Beatles Rock Band box. We got the full set with the special guitars and drums. I wasn't there for the unpacking, but saw the packing materials later. Awesome; efficient; elegant. Then I started to cut the box up (see why below), and was deeply impressed at the quality of its construction and materials. They spared no thought or expense on packaging that in a quality way.

I still have the box lid. I couldn't bring myself to cut a big photo of the Beatles.

The other was the new way Lulu.com is shipping books in bulk. For Moving a Puddle they were stacked up in a box with long sheets of heavy paper in around, or sometimes with sheets of foam stuffed around. I reused all that packing. For The Big Book of Unschooling, there are big boxes, each with four strong, beautiful cardboard boxes within, each with four or five books in it. So in a big box, there are only sixteen to twenty books. I suppose it has to do with weight. I don't mind, because the cover is really beautiful, and this way they come in pristine condition. Then when one is ordered I wrap it in tissue paper and sandwich it between two pieces of cardboard (and I keep getting these shipments of cardboard! ).

When the first batch arrived at the Good Vibrations Conference in San Diego, I was dismayed to see how much cardboard would be sent to recycling. NICE, solid boxes without a mark on them, but we couldn't bring them all home.

I'm going to add photos to this later, so if you love shipping cartons too, check back!