packaging experiment take #1

packaging does literally cost the earth… we are constantly trying to work out what packaging we should use but actually we just like naked flowers so that prompted us to question exactly how much packaging we need and what exactly do we need it for… so we teamed up with carla who also has a naughty mutt and decided to send her a flower with just an address label via royal mail to see what happens…

well the story continues in our local post office… a flower with no packaging caused much hilarity and debate… i wasn’t sure to begin with if i was going to be allowed to post it at all. I managed to persuade them to at least weigh it so that if I decided to send it anyway then at least it would have the right postage on! £1.08 a bargain normally when we send a single stem in packaging it costs £1.41 so by not packaging the flower not only have we not used the earth precious resources but we have also saved £0.33 on the postage and the time to pack and collect the materials we use to pack age with at the moment *brain starts chugging into action* this is good!

meanwhile in the post office we start discussing all the things we could possibly use to wrap the flower in (I have a list! this experiment is not over yet!) and end up deciding that even if its gets a little bit dirty its worth trying as an experiment and actually what a shame that postman charlie isn’t on today because he’d love to deliver one! (well charlie…. watch and see….)

bon voyage little flower… have fun!

well it started to get exciting…. postie richard was spotted in shropshire carrying our precious goods for delivery to naughty mutt

not only did it arrive but richard gave us loads of advice…. (i have a plan…. come back in a few days a see if it worked!)

“The lovely flower arrived safely this morning and I had a conversation with Richard the nice postie about it. He was really interested and said:
The flower doesn’t go through a machine at any point
Reinforce the hole you make on the card – and put it about 5mm further into the card (you can see on the pic it’s a bit frayed)
Use coir or a twisted natural type of string through the hole as the weakest part was the way the label is attached.
Don’t cut the label to a V shape as it weakens it – if you cut it then make a rounded shape” naughtymutt

in 24 hours without a scratch our little flower courtesy of royal mail reached shropshire and put a smile on our friend carla’s face and a cheeky grin on the naughty mutt!

This was good! now we want to do it again using reinforced holes and natural type string (thank you again richard!)… would you like to take part in packaging experiment take 1 and receive a free naked flower? all you have to do is promise to send us a picture of the condition in which it arrives… leave a comment here and email liz@henryandjayne.co.uk with your address

well new labels made and natural string located…. this morning i went to see bee in our local post office to send your flowers on their way…. everything crossed!!

and this one is going international… is it too much to soon? check back and find out!

well the rest of the naked flowers started their journey yesterday, bee weighed and stamped them as well as checking my labels!! she also remembered that we hadn’t put a customs declaration on the international ones… it was quite funny because we couldn’t decide if we actually needed a customs declaration if the package was packaged!… but we decided to put one on just for fun… she asked me if the flower had any value and i looked up and said it priceless… it’s handmade!

whilst i was causing havoc in the post office the first naked flower arrived at its destination… in wait for it *drum roll please* perfect condition! hooray and this is what sara had to say…

“Here it is and in perfect condition – lovely to find it on top of all the other post outside my front door and I prefer it like this than being packaged although I am not sure about the re-use of Xmas cards. I think I’d prefer a basic brown parcel label made from recycled materials or paper.”

really very pleased that no2 has landed safely and now we will work on improving the labels…. we will use what we have first as this is what we usually do and i really hate waste and i will ask the boys if we can come up with something. we try and use natural materials that have been made in the right way first of all and if possible ones that have been made by hand like our paper products handmade from upcycled cotton waste more often than not recycling uses more energy to to its job than starting from scratch… if the resources are available. we’ll let you know what we come up with!

latest news on no3 to land is it may have been stuck at the post office to collect because of underpaid postage?…. bee weighed each one….? lets see what happens!

well so far so good… most of the naked flowers have now reached their new homes in perfect condition… we’ve made a set on flickr with them all in save having a never ending blog post!…. almost time to think about how we can implement these fantastic results!…. we’re just waiting with our fingers very crossed about the naked flowers that we sent across the pond… as usual we’ll keep you posted!

its landed! and guess what…..

now we’re off to the drawing board…. we’ll be back soon!