Creative/new ways to (safely) pack a box?

Sometimes I tape magazines to the inside walls of a box for a little extra padding (and to get rid of all the old magazines in my apartment).

 

I reuse everything, my boxes may look like a shipping department threw up in the box, but my stuff gets where it is going safe.

 

I use those plastic grocery bags a lot. After beers are padded, they go in one, sometimes a second. Easier than tape and I always have a ton just sitting around. Also, if the worst was to happen and something broke or leaked, perhaps it would contain enough of the liquid that the box would still be delivered with the rest of the contents.

 

The boxes I've sent out have all been reused materials (except bubble wrap). I'm in the middle of renovating a house of mine, so I'm constantly getting boxes, padding, and misc material sent to me. My personal favorite material is the hard cardboard edge and corner pieces.

 

and excerpt from my "Super Cheap-Ass Guide to Shipping":

One way I've use to double-box is to get some of the free medium (the "more boxy" not the book-shaped) flat-rate USPS boxes. They fit bombers pretty much perfectly. With small bubble wrap between everything, you can fit around 5-6 bottles in there and pack one or two of them in a bigger box.
If you are strapped for a bigger box, I've found that you can use 2 of the large USPS flat rate boxes. Seal up the bottom of one and the force the second into the first. Use lots of tape on the seam. FedEx and UPS have no problem accepting USPS boxes for shipping Ground.

If you enjoy living dangerously, you can also get some of the UPS flat-rate plastic bag shippers, seal up most of the top but put a straw in the corner. Blow the thing up and seal it with some shipping tape and use it as cushion between inner box and outer box.

FalconA is not responsible for deflated shipping bags or wrist-slapping from the post office for misusing free flat rate boxes.

 

I re-use stuff now, but I understand where you're coming from. Some of my first boxes had some pretty random packing materials.

One person used empty thin water bottles. Nice way to stay low-weight and keep the bottles from the edge of the box.

 

I use wine shippers when possible. There's a wine store near my house. I stop by every now and then and ask if they've got boxes that they're looking to get rid of. They always do.

If I don't have any handy, I double pad my boxes, either using the box-in-a-box approach if I have boxes that fit into one other with at least 1/2" of padding on all sides, or cutting up thicker pieces of cardboard and building a second wall inside the box. The inside of the box is lined with a garbage bag*, and the beers are double wrapped in large sized bubble wrap and sealed with stretch wrap. I use newspaper to fill in the space in between bottles so that everything is secure.

* True story: I recently sent a regular partner a box in which a bottle of Cascade Blueberry (exploded? and) lost its cage/cork, and the contents of the entire bottle leaked into the box. The garbage bag held everything in.

 

Oh yeah, I once received a box with a dirty poncho with a McDonald's label on it used as padding. That was pretty weird.

 

That's a nice light weight idea.

 

I have some left-over pink-foam-board-insulation (probably 1/2" thick) that I will cut into proper siding to line all sides/top/bottom of the box, then pack inside that.

 

I reuse as much material as possible. Besides that I invdividually wrap each bottle in bubble wrap and use a combination of newspaper and packing peanuts to pad the box. My bottles always get where they are going safe and folks seem to like that I take care of the box (I tend to overpackage).

 

Anyone else ever get old laundry? I've gotten a few boxes with socks or towels in them... Those are the boxes that really make my wife sigh and shake her head.

 

Underwear (boys)

 

One of my great trading partners with an excellent sense of humor used a diaper box to ship beer to me! Thankfully there were no dirty diapers in it !

 

*mental note* be

But do you do the laundry and send it back to them?

 

Really glad to hear they'll take USPS boxes, I heard otherwise from someone who seemed to be 'guessing'...I've got tons of Medium Flat Rate boxes that would be perfect for some of my smaller trades but never use them because I felt FedEx would be offended/confused if I dropped the USPS box with a Fedex shipping label on it.

 

Me and one of my regulars have a box that we send back and forth thats a double box. The inside box is a double walled Huggies Wipes box (800 count, the box is huge). The box is basically indestructible, and is referred to as "The Tank"

 

I always bubble wrap if I'm not using a bottle shipper (sometimes do as well if I can fit it in), usually reinforce walls with cut-up panels of other boxes, and stuff the crap out the box with lots of filler. My boxes don't always look pretty but the beer always gets there intact and there's never any audible liquid noises. I always pack as if my box is gonna be dropped and otherwise abused so I try to ensure it will withstand any of that.

I also always save the packing from trades I received so there's usually a fair amount of boxes, peanuts, and random filler in the garage.

 

I had a trading partner send me a big box, where he used washed out Milk Jugs around the corners. I personally never use boxes with that much extra room, but I thought that was pretty creative.