Click the images for full-size versions! And if you’re interested in any of the pins you see below, you can get them at my Etsy shop here.

Backing cards and pre-printed customs stickers ready to go.

All my pin designs, in takeaway boxes. I believe this is called “upcycling” or something.

Between my first and second Kickstarters, I’ve moved house, and one of the best things about my new place is having a little workspace set up just for pin packaging. Join me as I put a great many little frogs in bags to send them out into the world…

Two layers of plastic.

One layer of plastic.

FREEDOM.

The pins arrive in tiny plastic bags to protect them (I’ve asked my manufacturer if they can do it in paper, but no dice.) Fortunately these can be recycled like polythene bags, so I bundle them all together and take them to my supermarket after unwrapping them.

There’s something oddly cathartic about a little slide for frogs.

A frog and his clutch are soon parted.

They’re fine! Look at them, they’re smiling. Oh, wait.

I’ve always been torn about rubber vs butterfly clutches to hold the pin in place. Rubber is easier to take off and on, but does have a habit of coming loose under sustained gentle pressure; in my experience butterfly have a threshold below which they’ll stay on quite safely (and then pop off), but poorly made butterfly clutches have a habit of not holding at all or spiking the wearer. However, the experience of posting hundreds of butterfly clutches was very hard on my fingers, so this time I tried rubber. I got myself a declutching device (there are loads on Etsy – mine is from Galloway Labs, who also do a backing card press which I’ve found very useful) which hugely simplified the process of getting the frogs off their clutches.

Backing cards fresh from the printer.

Stay on target… stay on target…

“Build me an army worthy of the garden pond.”

Rob Turpin, who designs my pins, gives little targets to stick the pin post through.

Glassine bag before covering.

All nice and cosy.

Every part of my packaging is biodegradable, so there’s that.

Once on their backing cards, I put them in glassine bags (glassine being a sort of smooth paper, for those unfamiliar – unlike waxed paper, it biodegrades nice and easily.)  You can buy these in bulk (I bought a thousand at a cost of about 4.5p each, which isn’t nothing but isn’t much). This adds a little extra step. Finally, they go in jiffy-bags – I’m still using up the last of my conventional bubble mailers, but once they’re done everything I post will be in an (also-biodegradable) Enviroflute corrugated paper bag.

Larger packages go in folding cardboard boxes with bubble wrap or tissue paper, as you can see in this here fine unboxin’ video.

Finally, postage: I use Royal Mail click & drop to get postage labels, print four to an A4 sheet on stickyback paper, and guillotine them up. (No pics, cos people’s addresses.) For international – and now for EU – they also get CN22 customs labels, which I print in bulk. Finally, every envelope gets stamped with my little gloomy frog rubber stamp, because I don’t have much of a brand but I’m going to make it everyone’s problem.