Beautified Parcels

A lot of my friends in Germany are pregnant as well. Yes, we are of that certain age. Or in that certain phase of life. ;-) Therefore I did a lot of crafting for babies in the last couple of weeks. I am surely going to share more of these crafting projects in the near future... but for now, I am in a hurry, because I need to send the parcels off to Germany so that they arrive in time for the arrival of the little ones.

So my Sunday craft project is to beautify parcels to send my pressies off to Germany. It is easy. It is quick. It is cheap. It makes such a difference. Like a second layer of wrapping paper around your presents. So the addressee can get excited as soon as she or he picks the parcel up at the local post office or finds it in the mail box.

All you need is an old parcel or box or envelope (yay for recycling!)...

... and a stamp (which you may recognise from here), an ink pad as well as a water-resistant marker

Then de-construct and unfound the parcel/ box – cut old adhesive tape open if needed...

... and turn in inside out. Then you can go crazy with the stamp: make sure you cover all outside areas, turn the stamp to create more dynamic or stamp clean straight lines if you are more of the accurate type of ‘stamper’.

Re-construct parcel/ box and use adhesive tape if needed to get it back into its original shape.

Fill the box with the presents. Add sender and addressee with the water-resistant pen either directly onto the parcel or onto a sticker... and the parcel is ready to go.

Need another reason why making your parcels look beautiful pays off? I read that if you want your parcel to arrive safely and in perfect condition, it helps a lot if they look as if the sender really cares about it. In other words, if the parcel looks great. Don’t bother sticking “handle with care” stickers or tape onto it, research has shown that postal workers are ‘blind’ to these neon messages. But they have a soft spot for beautiful packaging. And who would blame them – they need a ray of sunshine or a burst of colour or a smiling lion in their grey daily routine. So make your postie happy as well!