A postal-friendly decorated box (upcycled)

 

So I've been having fun decorating postal-friendly gift boxes like this....:)

It was actually a cardboard box for canned abalone. I love the aqua colour and the matching ribbon handle.

I went with a sweet patterned paper in the same colour family and just added fun elements from my stash.

Since I needed the elements to be flat, I went with fussy-cut elements and stickers...

And wash tape for more patterned goodness..:)

It is important that you fill up your box with enough recycled filler paper so that the contents of your box don't shift during shipping. I usually try to pick the smallest box I can that would fit my main present, then add little other "filler" bits to fill the rest of the box. Of course, I try to make the experience great for the recipient with proper wrapping tissue at the top and the filler paper at the bottom to protect the contents of the box. 

The whole box then gets wrapped in brown parcel paper with the recipient's mauling information and space for stamps when I get to the post office. Because the main box is flat, I do not need a layer of bubble wrap (and tons of packing tape) to protect the dimensional elements. This makes for a less bulky and much lighter parcel. Which means savings on postage fees! *high fives all around*

It is also much much easier to store these decorated boxes because they can be stacked and take up less space. I'll be saving my elaborate dimensional decorated boxes for hand-delivered pressies.

What do you think?