I wasn’t ready for this

When I started selling my stickers, I did not originally plan to sell them online. But I was pleasantly surprised by how many people kept on asking to purchase them, many of which are off-island, and so I took a couple of weeks to develop the online store on my website, take photos of the stickers, and create descriptions for each of them. Then I launched the online store and the orders started coming in! I was stoked for all of a few minutes and then realized I hadn’t even figured out how to package them.

Making it all by hand

I looked all around the stores on island and couldn’t find any nice envelopes, so I decided to make my own using green card stock paper that I’d had in my art supplies for a couple of years. I made a template and cut and folded a bunch of envelopes. I played around with different thank you notes, and fully customized my first batch of orders with watercolor, but after quickly realizing that it consumed way too much time, I got on my laptop and designed an envelope insert/thank you card. Luckily, I had just ordered new printer ink, and my printer was being slightly finicky, but after some troubleshooting, I was able to get the right size and colors printed on the cold-pressed watercolor paper that would accompany the stickers. I folded the thank you card so the stickers could sit in it like a sleeve. Still wanting to include a personal touch for each order, I wrote fa’afetai (thank you) with a gold watercolor pigment and left a little space for a quick note. For each order, I also included a freebie sticker with a note asking the customer to please recycle the packaging. Glued the envelopes, affixed a stamp, wrote out the addresses, and sent them by airmail.

It’s all still a work in progress!