Pretty Packaging

I love pretty packaging! When I deliver a clients photos I want them to ooh and ahh over the bag, the boxes and then the products!   Tiffany is known for their Tiffany blue boxes with the white bow, every girl knows this!   We will pretty much love whatever is in the box because it is from Tiffany.   The other week I drove to Leesburg in search of an old ladder (that will have to be another post) and I stopped in the most adorable shop called The Cottage,  if you love shabby chic then you will love this place, you must go visit!  I purchased a few small items and when they went to bag my items she carefully wrapped them in tissue paper and grabbed a tiffany blue bag to put them in and then she cut a piece of baby blue ribbon to tie on the handle.   The shop keeper chatted with me while she was doing this but I noticed and appreciated her efforts.   I didn’t spend a ton of money but she made me feel special!    I want my clients to feel special when they get their bag and feel excited to pull out their boxes and remove the ribbon to find their beautiful photos inside.  I want it to be an experience that makes them feel special.  That may be asking a lot from a bag with some tissue paper and ribbon but it is possible!  I love when clients don’t want to open my boxes because they are wrapped so nicely!  One of my favorite blogs is Paperie Boutique and it is all about pretty packaging and ideas for photographers.  It is a great place to find out about suppliers too for bags and boxes and anything else you can think of related to packaging.  I love going there for inspiration and to ooh an ahh some.  I love buying ribbon in my brand colors and I’m known to buy 4 rolls at a time of specialty ribbon at Micheal’s whenever they have a sale.   I decided that I liked the look of the kraft bags and boxes but a lot of the places I checked required you to purchase 100 -1000 at a time and I don’t have the space for that.  So I kept digging around and found that HB photo supply has these awesome kits where you can get a mix of several different sized boxes but keep the total number low!!!   Score!  I can find places for 50-60 boxes just not 100, same with bags. Even better they came with tissue paper in the blue color of my branding.  I can’t remember where I got my bags but they were also a value pack.  Once I had my boxes and bags it was time to figure out how to get my name on them, custom printing is cool but not in the budget at the moment.  I wanted a large sticker for my bags but again I didn’t want to order 500 stickers so I stopped by the local Staples and picked up large labels that I can print myself.  When you average it out I’m probably spending more per sticker but I print them as I need them and don’t have to store 500 stickers.  Plus with how much I changed my branding the first couple years I’d have a ton of stickers that I couldn’t use anymore.   For the boxes I am currently using some plain business cards I had printed up and securing them with double sided tape.  Nothing crazy fancy there.   At that point I just started playing around with ribbon and whatever I had in my Micheal’s impulse buy drawer and voila my packaging was born!!  Packaging doesn’t have to be expensive to look good, hit up the craft aisle at Walmart or use some 40% off coupons at Michaels and pick up a couple bags, ribbon and tissue paper and you are on your way.  Boxes were the only thing I had trouble finding a la carte so I sprung for the photo boxes early on.  Thank you cards are another thing that I’m always stocking up on whenever I have a coupon because I love to change them up.   I also recently started including a small goodie bag with treats appropriate for the subject that was photographed.  I give doggy treats to my pet sessions and yummy chocolate to all the adults!

For my client contracts I use a folder from Paper Presentation and I love it!   I’ve played around with dressing it up also and recently just changed up the ribbon so people don’t have to retie it after they open the contract.  In the folder I include a copy of my contract plus a Moo business card and any other promotional materiel I currently an using.

And with that I accomplished #19 on my 101 in 1001 list!!