April 3, 2007

• Shrink Wrapping 101

  Hi again!  This will be boring but necessary to answer all your qs!  I’ve received a ton of questions about our invitations and shrink wrapping process.  Here are the most frequently asked questions. 
  
  Q:  Where did you get the boxes? 
  A:  Paper Source, A7 Box Mailer ($2.00-$2.25 per box - click me!)
  
  Q:  How much was postage?
  A:  $1.35 in July 2006 (prices have increased so you should go take a sample box to the post office & it’ll also depend on what you put in the box)
  
  Q:  Which stamps did you use?  Where did you put the stamps?
  A:  It was easy~ we just went to one of those automated machines at the post office and printed out $1.35 stamps.  We didn’t care if they were pretty or not because it went on the outside of the shrink wrap. 
  
  Q:  Can you give me directions on how to shrink wrap something?
  A: 
  
  1 – First step is to determine the size of shrink wrap you need.  The shrink film bags come in 2 dimensions, width x length.  Depending on your package size, you’ll need a width x length shrink film bag larger than your package by a certain number of inches.  For example, if your box is 4 x 6 x 0.5, then you’ll probably need at least a 6 x 8.5 or even 6 x 11.  If the bag is too long on one side, you can always trim it off but if the bag’s too small you’re out of luck.  If you have about half inch of excess bag sticking out each side, you should be good (not counting the open end).  We got our bags off Uline (great site).  If you live near their warehouse, you can actually visit and ask for samples of different bags to see what fits plus you don’t have to pay for shipping.
  
  2 – Once you have the bags figured out, you’ll have to buy or borrow a sealer and a heat gun.  Uline used to sell these individually, but it looks like they’re selling it in a set now (click me!)…you don’t really need the film dispenser.
  
  3 – Now that you have all the materials to start your shrink wrap project…here’s the easy part.  Place the item you intend to wrap into the shrink wrap bag.  It’s okay if there is room between the end of the bag and the end of your box…in fact, you’ll want some room for the bag to shrink.
  
  4 – Once the item is set in the end of the bag, you’ll need to seal the open end.  Here’s where you plug in your sealer (directions may vary depending on the sealer you get).  Basically, you set the open end of the bag between the bottom base and the clamp of the sealer.  Leave about 1/2 to 1 inch of space between the apex point on the base of the sealer (that’s where the seal will form) and the end of the item in the bag.  Once the bag is in place, push down on the top clamp of the sealer and hold until either the light goes off or after 2 or 3 seconds (depending on the bag thickness).  It will vary but after you try a few you’ll get the hang of it.
  
  5 – Depending on the sealer that you get, some will have a cutter to trim off the excess portion of the bag on the other side of the now sealed open end.  Or if your sealer isn’t that fancy, you can trim off the excess with either a paper cutter or good ol’ scissors.
  
  6 – You should now have a fully sealed item inside the shrink film bag.  Here’s where you bust out the heat gun.  Usually, they need to warm up a bit…so plug it in and let it blow for until the heat is hot.  Be careful, because it can get really hot!  I shrunk all our invites on top of one of those trays I pulled out of our oven and used oven mitts to handle the tray if I had to move it around.
  
  7 – The strategy for a nicely sealed and shrunk bag is an even and symmetric shrinking of the bag with your heat gun.  What I mean by this is…first start on the largest face and point the heat gun at the center of the item.  Keep the gun about 4 to 5 inches away and the heat will get to the bag eventually and shrink it.  As soon as the bag begins to shrink (it’ll be pretty fast)…shrink it until the plastic over the center of the face of the item that you’ve pointed at looks pretty much flat.  At that point, the edges will still be loose but don’t worry, we’ll clean that up later.  Once that face is partially shrunk, flip the item over and do the same to the other side so it has a symmetric shrink on the other side.  Flip the box back over and widen out that center circle a bit more, so it’s close to the edges, then flip and do the same until all you have left to shrink are the edges.
  
  What we’re trying to do is to have the folded edges of the bag, once it’s shrunk end up in the middle of the side that they’re on.  You don’t want those edges sneaking over to the large flat side of the item and have them all uneven across the side.
  
  8 – Once you reach the edges, you can just point and shrink away.  Careful here that you don’t point and shrink too long though, as sometimes you’ll melt right through the shrink wrap and it’s back to square one.  For any trouble areas or wrinkles, you can usually just repoint the gun at it a little longer and it will usually shrink down.  If it still does not shrink down, then you might have gotten a bag that’s too big and it had too much room to shrink.
  
  I know, I know…this is super boring!  I don’t know how else to explain it though.  For those that asked…you’re getting what you asked for~ hehehehe! 
  
  Q:  What size shrink bags did you use?
  A:  6 x 8.5 from Uline.  It was like $20 for 500 bags!  The bags I got weren’t self-sealing but Uline might now offer some that are.
  
  Q:  How did you decide to do shrink wrapping?
  A:  I’m really happy to share because it took us soo long to figure this out ourselves.  All we started with was an idea that we wanted to send out these boxed invites but we didn’t want them to get dirty in the mail or put a bunch of stamps on them.  We spent an entire week going to so many different Office Depots, Staples, post offices, Party City’s, mailbox stores, etc.  We thought of mailing the box in another envelope, bubble mailers, ziploc bags, etc.  Nothing seemed like it would work.  Then a kind stranger who overheard our conversation told us about shrink wrapping. 
  
  Anyways~ good luck!  I hope this answers all your questions! 
  

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