Stand out Stampin'

I love when new shipments of boxes arrive at my doorstep. Mostly because it means I get to stamp them!

USPS Virtual Box Simulator

This is pretty neat, using a printout of the USPS logo and your webcam... however I must admit that a much easier way to know what box will fit your item best is to just have a few of the different sizes available on hand at home. They are FREE boxes after all :)

Running Errands

Okay yesturday I forgot to keep my camera on me (I picked it up to put it in a pocket, and it just didn't make it there) which was really sad, because I ran some fun errands and multiple times I wanted to be able to snap a picture.

I went downtown, or just North of downtown, to Carton Services, which if you live in Portland and are in need of cheap boxes - this place is the shiz-nit!!! I needed bubbles, and I knew they sell these HUGE bags of recycled bubbles (all different sizes and colors - the bag costs $10 and could easily fit 2 or 3 people in it) and I needed some boxes. I borrowed my brother's car and completely filled it with packaging stuff. What got me super excited were these boxes that are perfect for mobiles, only 89cents each and they came complete with pink foam stuffing. Holy crap they are amazing. I'll take a picture later today and post it! I can't tell ya why a simple box with pink foam in it makes me so happy - but it does!!! They are amazing!!! I am going to have to go back and get more soon. :)

Then after the shipping materials madness, I drove a few blocks down Naito Street to the Food Innovation Center and got paid $25 to taste organic chicken broths and give my evaluations.
It was sorta fun in a super geeky way. Next week they are doing fresh fruit tasting, that would be more fun than broth. The place is part of Oregon State University, a service for the food industry to provide companies with statistical data. Quite the easy $25 bucks, and its right down the street from the cardboard place, so hey - it made for a fun errand running afternoon.

If you live in Portland and want me to send you the email to get hooked up with this OSU program, just let me know and I'll forward it to you. Its a completely volunteer program, and easy money.

Holiday Season Breathing Exercises

The holiday season is on top of us. I am a bit in disbelief that Thanksgiving is this week...

this time of year means 3 things to a small businessperson like myself:
1. assembly (I have been prepping like mad for weeks, so now I can bury myself in the finer details of package assembly)
2. shipping (the website orders are picking up, the boxes are going out, and of course my favorite stuffer is out of stock, but not to worry - there are plenty of orange LeahGlass.com pencils to go around to all my happy customers!)
3. vending (holiday shows - madness people, madness)

This year you can find me at:
Portland Saturday Market
every weekend until Christmas Eve
Super Crafty Wonderland Holiday Show
Sunday, December 14th from 11am-7pm
Handmade NW at the World Trade Center
Tuesday, December 2nd from 10-6pm


my online shop has been picking up the pace - many wonderful new customers and many of my glass mobiles and other little glass creations going out in the mail. Now that I have no car all of a sudden, I am utilizing my nice post man a little more these days. Its nice that they pick up at the door, and thankfully

Already bought a turkey, pre-brined organic birds at Trader Joes - gotta love TJs. Now I have to get a bunch of root veggies and butter. I am out of butter at the house, whats Thanksgiving dinner without butter! madness I say, madness.

Hope everyone else is having fun this week prepping for the holidays. Usually this weekend is pretty crazy at the Portland Saturday Market. I'm crossing my fingers. This girl has got to buy a car. I am not holding my breath though, I just gotta keep breathing.

Its all about the packaging

I love circular things, they make me smile.

I constantly am thinking about how I could improve my packaging. Good packaging really takes a product to the next level.

But these particular Chinese medicinal herbs really have gone the extra mile. These little black bee-bees are a way for the Traditional Chinese Doctor to prescribe herbs for their patients in a palatable form. The herbs taste like foot, so having them in a pill that can just be swallowed with no foul taste, is a wonderful relief from having to drink the herbs as a crazy nasty tea.

This week my doctor sent me home with these "Chicken Eggs" which are simply an elaborate way of packaging the bee-bee medicine pellets. There are 50 or so of these little bee-bees that I take each time, and they are all contained in a little plastic ball (one for each time I take them) and then the plastic ball is inside another plastic ball that is coated in wax and stamped with a gold symbol. To take the pills I have to crack open the wax and pry out the inner ball, open it up and dump the little bee-bees into my mouth.

Crazy eh? Is this the Chinese version of the child-proof-pill-container?

I had to share - the elaborate packaging really blows my mind.