For the past 6 months, my boyfriend has been deployed and he finally made it home a week ago! I'm so grateful to have him home safe and sound! This week, one of my closest friends got deployed. I thought this would be a good opportunity to make a blog post about care packages! I may not be an expert on deployments or care packages, since this was the first time I have ever had to deal with one but I'm always looking for good care package ideas and thought I should share some of mine for others!
I never planned on making a blog post about the care packages I sent, therefore unfortunately I don't have many pictures. I really need to make it a habit of taking pictures of my crafts! I sent at least one every single month but I only have about 6 packages to share with you guys. :( Hopefully, these can help you come with ideas for your own care packages as well.
First things first (I'm the realest), the boring stuff! Like many others, I recommend getting the priority boxes from USPS. These are the best, because as long as you can fit everything in the box, it's one set price! Also, you can get these boxes sent straight to your house for free! They are also the perfect size for 12x12 scrap book paper! Secondly, you're going to need some custom forms and envelopes. The form I get are the: "PS Form 2976-A" and the envelopes are "PS Form 2976-E" It's so much easier to fill them at home because then you know exactly everything you have in your box, rather than wasting time at the post office.
As for the things to include within your package, that is totally up to your service member! I find that the lists I found online didn't really work for my boyfriend. This was his 9th deployment so he was pretty set on everything he needed. Also, times have changed and a lot of them receive things like cliff bars, granola bars, tuna packets, and beef jerky for free and can easily access them. It also depends on where they have been deployed. He's in the Air Force, and my friend is in the Navy, so while he was in a tent she's on a boat for most of her deployment. Just really get to know your service member to know what they want/need and what you can or cannot send.
Finally! Let's get to the fun part, the decorating! Like I mentioned earlier, I found the best and easiest way is to use 12x12 scrapbook paper and mod podge. I use 5 pages for each box, one for the very center and one for each side of the box. Many people glue these on before assembling the box, I just do it afterwords. I use a sponge brush and paint the mod podge onto the sides and just glue the paper on and that's it! Depending on the theme, I then type out a quote, print it out, cut it and glue it onto the sides. TA-DA! Simple! :)
Here are a couple of care packages I have made in the past!
This was the very first care package I sent my boyfriend when he was deployed. It's still probably one of my favorite ones as well! The quote reads: "Distance is just a test to see how far love can travel." I thought the quote was very appropriate for the very first package since it's such a sudden change. I used 3 different paper patterns from Hobby Lobby. Two were globe patters, and two were roads. The center one is just a colorful map of the United States. I loved the pop of color in the middle. Originally, my idea was to buy an actual map and to use that. You can still totally try that and I'm sure it would amazing! It does add an extra step of measuring it out to fit the box though.
The second one, is a winter care package I made before the Christmas ones! I didn't really think about how long the word snowflakes was, therefore it looks a little funky. haha The quote reads: "If Kisses were snowflakes I'd send you a blizzard". I love this quote and thought it was so cute and appropriate! You can definitely jazz this up with some pictures or cotton balls! I used two different patterns, snowflake ones and snowman ones, and I just alternated them.
This next care package, is the very last one I sent to my boyfriend. Yes that was a huge gap but I don't have any pictures of the others ones :/ Since we are long distance anyway when he's here in the US, I decided to do one about our home. Also, the quote is from one of my favorite songs: Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. By this time, I committed to buying a whole book of scrapbook paper, that explains the many different patterns. I usually stick to a pattern but I thought this still looked pretty nice. Sometimes, Hobby Lobby and Michaels have 50% off sales and you can get an entire book of 12x12 scrapbook paper with like 180 sheets for only 10 bucks! The only reason I never bought them before because I was always specific about my themes and those were usually a bit to generic, but I decided to make it work! haha
This next one is the first care package I sent to my sailor friend. Apologies for the quality of the picture. I wanted to do a little ocean/ship theme. Not my best work, but she loves it! I saw a ship survival kit idea on pinterest and just loved it! So I needed to find somewhere to include that in mine! haha This time I just used two different patterns.
And Last, this is the most recent care package that I just finished today actually! I have to say, this is probably my favorite one! Aside from the fact that my quote isn't centered! It drives me nuts! This one is specifically Disney's UP themed! I couldn't find any cute clouds scrapbook paper but I still love the blue sky! It includes the cute house with all the balloons floating up towards the sun, the famous: "Adventure is out there!" quote, as well as a ripped out picture of paradise falls that Ellie ripped out of a library book, and finally a quote from Russel himself: "The Wilderness must be explored!" It came out so much better than I could have ever expected!
This was quite a long post! Sorry for that, but hopefully you were able to find something helpful or just get some ideas for your own care packages! I love seeing all the different care packages so I hope you did as well! Thanks for stopping by! :)
-- Laura
No comments:
Post a Comment