Recently one of my oldest and dearest friends joined the Army and left for training. As proud as I am of him for serving our country I miss him that much more! To show how much I miss him I decided I would start sending him care packages.
Now for those of you who know me I do my research before I embark on any new project or task. What I came to find out is there are a whole lot of pictures of ideas but not a lot of this is how you do it.
After talking with one of my friends she told me to blog about it. So here I am, my first care package: Halloween!! Now some of my rules will be because they are for someone in the military, however you could transfer these ideas to college students or family living far away.
Some rule to note:
1) MUST use United States Postal Service
2) MUST send priority (I suggest the large square flat rate box as it cost less then $17 to ship no matter the weight of the package)
First, you need a basic theme or idea for inspiration to bring the whole care package together. For this particular care package I have chosen Halloween!!
Next, I went to pinterest to find some ideas of what I might need. Great ideas, search:Halloween Care Packages for Soldiers. If you are not the creative type or need to send a care package quickly do a google search : Care Packages for Soldiers, this will give you many sites that will make and send your package for you.
Now that I have my ideas and suggestions its time to go shopping!! :-) I had two lists, A) items needed to decorate the package: I usually buy my decorating items from Target but Walmart, Walgreens, and the dollar tree all are excellent places to get the decorating items. Remember your soldier will more than likely discard of most, if not all of your decorating items. And now for B) items for my soldier. These items can be from anywhere. My items for this package came from Target and HyVee.
A) Items to Decorate
Budget $30 Actual spent: $28
1) one(1) large square flat rate box-USPS-$0
2) spider duct tape-Walgreens-$2
3) scrapbooking tape (Halloween) -Target-$4
4) scrapbook paper (Halloween) -Target-$7
5) Halloween stickers -Walgreens-$2
6) sticky letters -Target-$4
7) plastic/rubbery Halloween toys
-Walgreens-$5
8) spider web material-Walgreens-$4
B)Items For My Soldier
Budget: $60 Actual Spent: $46
1) Men's Health magazine-Target-$5
2) Hot Chocolate with mini marshmallows-HyVee-$1
3) Hot Chocolate Original-HyVee-$1
4) Hand Warmers-Target-2/$5
5) Cool touch Kleenex-Target-$3
6) Chapstick-Target-$2
7) Halloween oreos-HyVee-$3
8) Halloween chocolate Flipz-HyVee-$6
9) Halloween Candy Corn mix-HyVee-$3
10) Orbitz Wintermint gum-HyVee-$1
11) Nutter Butters-HyVee-$2
12) Nutella to Go-HyVee-2/$3
13) Halloween koozies-Target-2/$2
14) Halloween Snickers-Target-$1
15) Halloween Starburst-Target-$1
16) Halloween Skittles-Target-2/$2
17) Halloween Pop Rocks-Target-$1
18) Halloween Nerds Rope-Target-$1
19) Halloween card-Target-$3
C)Shipping
1) USPS - $17
To make the care package I simply taped the bottom with my special spider duct tape. Then attached the scrapbook paper with double side tape, I'm sure glue works just as well. What ever you have laying around the house will be sufficient.
Next I create any sayings I would like to add. This particular package had the following sayings:
A) "I'm going batty without you!"
B) "I miss you so much it's scary!!"
Then I start to play a weird game of jenga trying to make it all fits so the box will close and nothing comes falling out! :-)
After that I continue to decorate the top with my fun Halloween decor. I add my card in. Then I close it up and put the fun Halloween tape all around the box to make sure it's kept tight!!
Finally it's ready to be mailed out!! When you send priority mail you are insured for $50 and can track your package for up to 11 scans.
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