In December I did a secret-Santa thing through Knitters' Review, and it was such fun that I signed up for another through Ravelry. The holiday one was sweet - check out what I got up above: soft yarn, cool buttons, cute needles, homemade cookies, and a really nice deliaQ tool bag.
For this current swap I'm in, the theme is Malabrigo yarn. This Indigo is hard to part with, but I bought it special for my swappee and since I didn't want to be tempted to keep it at all it's been living in the plastic bag from the yarn store. I also bought soap and a nice-smelling candle, and then I found this cute bag to wrap everything up in.
I weighed my package, sealed it, and went to the Post Office online site to print a label. It was there that I started having second thoughts about the contents of my gift. First of all, it's being shipped to Norway. According to the website, no inflammables. Which I think means no flammables.
Also, no scents. Does this apply to the soap? I'm not sure. The flammable/inflammable candle is scented too. Will I set off an international incident involving Norwegian German Shepherd scent-sniffing dogs?
And - if you ship in a box, it's a lot of money. Really. More than the cost of the contents. (And forget UPS - I could fly to Norway for the cost of shipping. Okay, mayble not to Norway. But to San Francisco, for sure.)
So I've unpacked everything and am considering my options...everything soft, packed into a USPS-provided envelope and shipped at a reasonable cost. I guess I'll shop some more for noncontroversial stuff I can flatten!
3 comments:
I like the swap you received.
Could you send some cute buttons to your swapper too? And could you make some stitch markers?
I hate shipping stuff. It's always expensive, it's usually a hassle to figure out what you can/can not send, and then you end up standing in line at the post office for an hour because the 75 year old guy in front of you is unsure about his shipping options, or worse, tries to withdraw money from his account (german post)... I wish I could ship via e-mail.
I would ask USPS, but I dont think a candle is what they mean by "flamable" - tenichally they yarn (dare I say it) is just as flammable as the candle. I think they mean chemical things that can explode if it gets too hot. Although that brings up the question - do you want a candle that could get melty next to the beautiful yarn?
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