My First Orders!!

Here we go everyone!! The business is up and orders are coming in!! We are finally getting in the swing of things!

And, so without further ado! Let's get to it!!

Initially, I planned to share a video documenting the behind the scenes of printing for my first order but, it just didn't go as planned! So instead of a video, let's dive in with a photo.

So again, it is truly regrettable that the video I shot is unusable because it truly is an incredibly funny reel, or at least I think so XD but, I do have one photo documenting the process and it's a pretty sad one take a look at the bottom of the page on the left hand side...I cut too much off! So after finishing everything, I had to print everything AGAIN! Which was kind of painful, I am not going to lie....

But, I got over it, reprinted and cut the book, with little to no issues, and moved on to packaging everything. Sometimes, no matter how much you've practiced mistakes will happen anyway. The key however, is to be relentless and to keep on going regardless.

And there it is below! Isn't it Book-ti-ful!!

Now, in running my business, I aim to have the least amount of harm on the environment as possible. To that end, I use felt made from recycled plastic bottles to sew the little pouches to hold the earrings; I used the cuttings from my book to make my own little paper cushions to protect the products, and then I used the crimpled kraft paper for added protection and aesthetics. The last thing was perhaps the most detrimental product for the environment as I had to buy it, along with the box. In the future, I plan to make my own boxes, and mailing envelopes to further decrease the amount of waste I'm proliferating when shipping packages out to everyone.

And, GLASSINE, which I used to wrap the book, is biodegradable!!

After all the packing was accounted for it was time to start preparing to ship everything off. So I made a P.O. Box with the post office and used their service to make my own shipping label. It was also here that I realized that I needed to buy one of those fancy shipping label printing machines but, more on that later.

Once the shipping label was made and adhered onto the box the next step was to drop it off at the post office! With each order my goal is to have a turn around time of two weeks and so far so good. But, in order to ensure that I managed to ship everything within a 2 week time frame, I ended up taking my first packaged order with me to the greatest city in the world (fight me, I grew up here) and mail it here instead of New Jersey.

With our first order on its way it was now time to turn our attention to our second order, Mr. Froggy and His Tea. I didn't do this with the first order but, moving forward I am going to color coordinate the little pouches with the color of the earrings--because I think that would be so cute! And it is!! As you can see above. With everything completed these earrings (much like the first order) will go through a quality check and then it is time to start packing everything once more. The challenge with this order is that I am only shipping earrings which means that I am not going to send them in the larger box that I used for the last order. As a result, I am thinking that a mailing envelope might be best. But of course, we are still in the mindset of being eco friendly in everything that we do and so the question becomes: how to package this in the least harmful way possible?

But you must forgive me this time. I wasn't able to purchase my usual felt made out of recycled plastic bottles and instead had to settle for felt made out of polyester due to time constraints. Nonetheless, as a businessperson I want to be transparent and hold myself accountable for this and let everyone know that the felt shown above is made out of polyester and not recycled plastic bottles. That said, in the future, I will be sure to head to Blick Art Materials on 6th Avenue to purchase the felt that I like :)

Now back to our original question on how to package everything in a more eco-friendly way, I am definitely thinking that I will be making my own envelope. And, for the stuffing, since I bought an extra bag of the crimpled kraft paper strips, I'll most likely use that for the paper stuffing :)

ANNNNNNDDDDDD! I bought myself a new little doohickey!! I bought myself a shipping label printer! Now, I can't do an unboxing since I was too excited and unboxed everything already and it would be fake to put everything back in the box and film myself, pretending to open everything for the first time so instead! Here's a video of me trying to figure out how to set it up and get it to work for the first time :)

PEEPS! It is now 5:30am on a Saturday and I finally managed to log in to my USPS account! I finally remembered my favorite food for my security question and, at long last, I was able to change my password. See? I do know myself after all! This time I wrote everything down so that I won't have to go through this again! That said, I think this was definitely a glitch with USPS because I entered this answer initially and they rejected me. But none of that matters now! I'm in! And now I can print the label for my second customer!

However, before that, I must first think outside of the box so that I can step outside of the box and make a new box from a pre-existing box. #BARS #Recycling

Okay and we're back! It is now 7:55am and I tried you guys to make a box from a pre-existing box, but the box that I was trying to recycle was too small and so I'll have to try that again next time! So instead, I just used one the box I was going to recycle as it was, printed the shipping label, added the packaging to the box, and got myself ready to go!

So now all that remains is to officially drop it off at the post office. And with that everyone, order # 2 is locked and loaded and ready to be sent!

And, if you'd like, you too can be by next customer! Payment Plans are available and new items are coming in soon! Stay tuned!

And, if you're not quite ready to purchase something, please join my mailing list!!

Thank you for your continued support everyone!

Until Next Time!

The artist as she waits in line to mail her second order off

The artist after having sent the package off for mailing