I am always being asked “How do you wrap your glass for international postage?” I get asked so often I thought it would be easier just to blog about it!
As you may know I have an online shop and something people always ask me is how safe is it to send art glass across the planet. Well it’s fairly safe. Its not a perfect science but out of the countless items I have posted internationally, in the 20 years I’ve been sending my glass all over the planet, I have been told about one loss … one breakage in the post.
The first was a parcel that was 10 glass candle holders that were being sent to a restaurant in New Orleans. The expected delivery date was somewhere around Monday August22, 2005. My parcel never arrived, understandably! It was the week of Hurricane Katrina. I re-made the candle holders months later when the restaurant was up and running again, at no charge to the restaurant owner.
The second parcel was one of my “girls” that arrived broken in two and I re-made another girl for that customer and posted it and received my insurance dollars back from Australia Post after the relevant paperwork had been processed.
Above you can see a map of where my glass pieces have been posted to over the last 20 years. I don’t know what the percentage of loss/breakages is and I have no idea how many items I’ve posted over the years so I can’t do the maths. We created this map for my website.
As you know I make all sorts of glass items. I have one system for wrapping them whatever they are. This woven platter that’s 40cms by 40cms (that’s more than 16 inches across) went to Auckland, New Zealand. The colour combination here was commissioned especially by my NZ collectors. And it got there safely!
This white piece is also 40cms x 40cms (16″ x 16″) and went to New York to enhance someone’s minimalist colour scheme.
This “girl” went to Florida, USA,
And this piece went to Dublin in Ireland, where I am sure it is serving antipasto stylish to this day!
This “splat” went to London, UK.
I go to great lengths to ensure that everything arrives safely. Here’s what I do each time.
I prepare the piece, by that I mean I make sure its clean and dry. I add my “care card” inside and start wrapping. I wrap it one way in bubble wrap and then the other in bubble wrap.
When you wrap with this sized bubble wrap you end up with one side being quite lumpy. This is why I wrap it twice and finish the bulky wrapping – one on the top and one of the base. The parcel at this stage becomes quite thick.
Next I build one of the white cardboard boxes that I’ve had made especially for my pieces that are 40cms x 40cms. My boxes are 8cms tall, so they allow for multiple layers of bubble wrap.
You can see here how deep the box really is. The lid covers the base completely.
I fill the base of the box with these biodegradable peanuts.
See how the glass cannot move inside the box. Its sitting tightly. That’s important. It mustn’t be able to move inside its container. It mustn’t be touching anything else while its in transit. This is imperative in case it gets dropped then the bubble wrap and the peanuts will bear the brunt of the shock.
The lid of my boxes fits snugly over the base of the box. This is another safety precaution in keeping the glass inside safe. I then bubble wrap the box one way and then the other. The parcel starts off as a little plate and ends up all wrapped up and snug inside 4 separate layers of bubble wrap, and a box and then I finish it off with brown paper.
When its covered in brown paper (I wrap all the edges in fragile tape) and do due diligence for our customs requirements and it is ready to send off to its new home!
Amd here I am outside my studio with a parcel of glass all wrapped up safely.
Please enjoy browsing through my Etsy shop. I hope you find something you like. You can pretty much guarantee it’ll get to you safely! And then the kids can enjoy popping all that bubble wrap while you enjoy your brand new piece of personalised glass art. Happy buying!
Tags: international postage online shop post overseas safe handling safe online shopping safe wrapping wrap glass wrapping wrapping glass
