Think Tank Tuesday

You get what you pay for. Man, this is sooooo true when it comes to moving boxes! They are all not created equal.

Granted, I stuffed the moving boes for my studio like there's no tomorrow, but come on! They are moving boxes and are supposed to hold heavy things.

When I started packing my studio in South Carolina, I ran to Lowe's to get boxes. Closest and cheapest place to get them. It was less than five minutes from my house. Bonus! Home Depot was about 15 minutes away, but I quickly learned that the extra 10 minutes was seriously needed.

Both Lowe's and Home Depot boxes cost the exact same amount for the exact same size box. Lowe's does offer you a 5% discount if you pay with your Lowe's credit card so they could cost less than Home Depot which was the case for us. They also have the same numbers for crush tests. Let's face it, paper is heavy. And by heavy I mean wicked freaking heavy!

I hate to say this, but every single box from Lowe's was pretty damaged and/or crushed during our move. Many of the boxes were crushed just from being stacked in our house!

All of my paper and cardstock was packed in Lowe's boxes unfortunately. They all made it safe and sound though. Nothing was damaged or bent which was surprising. All of my albums were packed in Home Depot boxes and I was super excited about that since they weighed about a million pounds each and there were five boxes of them. They were in perfect condition. Very few Home Depot boxes were damaged/crushed/bent/torn. Most of that damage was from some piece of furniture hit them.

When we moved to South Carolina, we didn't buy any boxes. We got almost all of them for free from AC Moore. One of my friends was a manager there so she hoarded good boxes for me.

Those boxes that were made for shipping items from China were pretty thick and held up extremely well. Most of them were actually outer boxes. Sounds strange I know. I thought it was crazy how many boxes are in boxes for international shipping.

Oh I would skip banana boxes and grocery store boxes. Nothing like spoiled food to ruin your things! And then there's the hitchhikers.....spiders....bugs....yuck! No thanks!

Until next time *

Forget the packing peanuts. Go with construction paper from the hardware store. It comes in long rolls. It's great for filling up boxes and it crushes easily. Best of all, it's cheap! You can also use it to cover your floors to protect them and as firestarters in your next bonfire and celebrate the move!