Recycle Your Business Supplies!

Now we're getting to the end of the month, and admittedly, I was starting to run out of ideas when someone posted one of the projects I'm going to talk about.  Then it hit me!  We have so many freaking boxes, envelopes, stickers, etc being sent to us that we should be recycling them as much as possible.  So, here are all the ideas I could come up with.  I'd love to hear more!

Jamberry Labels

These darn things:

Before I started making my sample packets, I had such surplus of these things that it was frustrating.  I'd get 50 with every set of samples and I didn't want to throw them away, so I kept a snack-sized Ziploc bag full of them.  I still have that baggie somewhere, and it even has old-style Jamberry labels in it.  If you don't want to use your Jamberry labels on sample bags, here are some other ideas.

• Put them on your pens so that you have cheap "Jamberry" brand pens.
• Put them under your return address on Jamberry mailings so your customers know what's coming.
• Put them on items in marketing baskets to make sure everything has a logo.

Purple Envelopes

These:

We get one of these every time we make an order, have a party order sent to us, or turn in hostess rewards. Basically, any time we get wraps in the mail, you get one of those.  If you're like me, you've been tossing them in the recycle basket, but Alicia Pettus came up with this startlingly amazing solution:

Okay, seriously guys, in the blog post where she shows how to make one, she explains that she had this epiphany after seeing that bulletin board business card holders are $7.99 for 4.  Now, $2 each might not be a ton, but these are free, except for construction and they're customized to our product.  For those of you who have lengthwise business cards, make her template a little longer and the "front" of the box a little shorter.

Catalogues

If you don't know what one looks like...I don't even have words.

You can make shopping bags and envelopes out of expired catalogues.  I know we all have a few left over when the new inventory comes out and using them for shopping bags could solve 2 problems at once.  Now that we don't have gift envelopes any more, I'm sure your customers would love to have a bag to carry their purchases away in.  Unfortunately, the only video I could find that explains how to do this is from a lady who does "Passion Parties," so you might want to make sure no impressionable eyes are watching it.  I'll do my best to make my own video with Jamberry materials soon.

Shipping boxes

These:
It seems that I'm getting a shipment in one of these all the time, and they might be the things that have the most versatility.  Deanna uses them for her Book-to-Look boxes.  I use them for filing away smaller papers or pieces of inventory or business items I'm not using right now (like out of season Book-to-Looks).  Currently, I have one of the longer ones filled with old receipts and one of the shorter ones filled with customer care cards.

Homework:  Tell us how you recycle these or other business supplies.  Due tomorrow.