Pack it up again - Tiara Box Consumer Testing!

Ok, so the tiara box dilemma may have been solved! The prototype of my new handmade boxes has been sent to the first buyer of one of my Rose of York fascinators via Folksy today.

I have decided to use the same card from the Kanban factory shop that I use for our backing cards treated the same with the tea and the ironing etc. I've made a template for a custom sized box with a lid featuring the Wychbury stamp. I am looking for feedback from our customers on how the boxes stand up to mailing and their general aesthetic appeal so until the end of April they will be offered FREE with all the fascinator bands sold through any of our online shops. If the feedback is good and the design is finalised then they will be available as a seperate listing, a snip at £1.50 each including all the froo froo leaves etc.

If you buy a fascinator will be invited to leave your feedback either as a comment on here or in the feedback field of the purchase itself. Please be honest, I can take it!

Paula x

Pack it up

As you know we like things au naturel here at Wychbury and generally use lovely muslin bags from Celestial Gifts on Etsy with our Wychbury stamp on them. However, in these dark times of unpredictable sales and fluctuating exchange rates we have been a bit, well *short* recently! This has led to me making do and mending with whatever white fabric I can find and dunking it in tea! There is something satisfying about making the packaging part of the creation. It's also nice to take stuff that would normally be binned and make use of it.

Our backing cards are made from misprinted and rejected card from Kanban in Shipley where their factory shop lets you fill up a box with whatever you like - my kids absolutely love it! We use used teabags to stain them and a combination of new and vintage rubber stamps to embellish them.

Ok, so I have a dilemma. I am now making a range of fascinator/headbands featuring my flower corsages, including a new range for bridalwear. My dilemma is that the only thing I can find to package them in is acetate boxes - which just isn't going to work with my aesthetic at all I'm afraid!

I've had a couple of ideas so far, one was to make a drawstring bag like the ones we use already but in a rounded shape with a stiffened and padded gusset to protect the fascinator - I've not tried that one yet. I have had a go at making origami boxes out of stiffened fabric. They are absolutely gorgeous but aren't really stiff enough for shipping and use a large amount of fabric - obviously putting paid to any thriftiness whatsoever. However, I'm thinking that they may work as a small jewellery box and be a perfect use for small scraps of fabric and recycled paper. There are loads of tutorial videos online on how to make them from paper and I just followed the same principle but with fabric that already has a layer of fusible backing on it - dyed in tea of course! Waaaaay too faffy to be practical but I think I'll just keep buttons in them for now!

I've just added an 'Our Packaging' set to our Flickr page for our packaging creations which I will hopefully be adding a design for fascinators to very soon. In the meantime, check out the 'Etsy Packaging' Flickr group for lots of gorgeous Etsy sellers packing their work up just right and PLEASE send me any ideas for packaging for my fascinators :)

Paula x