What a great thread and since I've come out of my lurkdom here and have a fair amount of experience in packing seeds to trade/share, and have received seeds in, in a multitude of ways, I'll just add my 2 cents. I see there are certainly multiple ways and some consider one way to be the best, while others consider it to have cons. I don't think any one way is considerably better than another. As far as economical, the ones using pages from catalogs, or printer paper (new or used) are probably by far the most economical to make. What works well for one, might not work for another. What is economical (or considered to be) for one, might not be economical to another. Getting the seeds out of its packaging is yet another part of the equation. Resealing, if need be, is another part of the equation. There is patience (which I have little of) and time as well as convenience to be considered. I have and use the small zip lock baggies. They are found to be what works best for me. They are a little more than 2/3 cent each when I ordered 3000 of the the discounted Blue Line ones Here. Maybe Trudi has an even cheaper source, of ordering in bulk without having to order a million. This winter, I've pondered the problem of static electricity with certain seeds or with particularly tiny seeds like sedums and butterfly bushes. What I opted to do on those two are to wrap the seeds in a 4" square of tissue, folded and labeled, and then inserted in the zip baggie. Nice instructions and pics pitimpinai and monte. Thanks for sharing! I'm sure that many will benefit from them both. Now...you know my preferred way to pack the seeds that I send out and the cost, we'll move on to how I like to receive seeds packed. Like quilt said above, " I promise you if you send me a pack of seeds in a straw, an envelope, a zip lock baggie, a coin envelope, a bubble mailer, or a tin can I will throw them in dirt and water them just the same. " Whatever one chooses to send them in is fine by me. I do kind of like the zip baggies for bigger seeds, and either reuse or recycle them along with other plastic bags...yes I am OCD (or is it CDO?) when it comes to recycling. The brightly colored ones made from recycled catalogs always brighten my day when I see them. If the seeds are properly dried, I think that any kind of packaging is fine and not detrimental. #What is most economical for one person might not be to another person, variables being the purchase of zippies, coin envelopes, straws, printer paper, printer ink, stick on labeling of some sort. #What one prefers to pack in is indubitably not preferred by all, also for numerous reasons. As important as seed packaging is, I think that the labeling is of just as much or more importance, but that is maybe food for thought for another time and thread. Below is a pic of several of the packs of wonderful seeds I received in the 2009 WLOMWL swap. Lots of different packaging, and labeling. Something I had not seen before were glassine baggies and what looked like folded glassine. Both suited me fine/great because of what they contained. Happy gardening, collecting, sharing/trading, and dreaming of your 2010 gardens! Sue...rbb as Terenne said, "This thread is a great example of different strokes for different folks. I so agree. Oh...if you're still with me, my vote for the most economical ones would have to be those made from recycled paper. EEK...have I had too much coffee again? Sue...rbb and loquacious as usual. (kcqrna and monte, it was aliska12000 above that spoke of the rosary pliers in her post showing her potential seed sowing tools.)

I need a printer for text and some photos, as noted in my first post. I spent many hours reading reviews and there was no stand-out. Several days ago, my SIL sent a photo she printed at home of an online image of an oil painting. It was so outstanding, I could hardly believe my eyes. Hers is a Canon Pixma mg5320. I ordered an updated version, Canon Pixma mg6320 which has a gray cartridge for better b/w photos. This printer is mainly for text but I was really wowed by her photo, esp as she is not a tech person.

I thought I'd report back for people who are still looking. I ended up getting the Canon Pixma MX850 (after seeing the review at pcmag.com which suggested that there were substantial improvements over the earlier model (they were not directly comparing it to the mx700, but rather a recent MP??? model. Nevertheless, it sounded like this 850 was better than what came before (the details about how skip my mind, but I know in readin it, it seemed worthwhile). I had someone set up the Canon on Friday. It is big (and as Jane said, it's attractive and seems commercial in quality). I LOVE IT. The software is not bulky like HP, and it was easy to connect the printer to my desktop, my daughter's, my husband's laptop and my laptop. I can scan documents and the wonderful lcd display will walk me through simple steps. It asks if I'm scanning from the platen or document feeder, if it should be saved to a pc or faxed or emailed (I believe those were the choices). Then you can choose which computer to receive the scan (that computer must be on to receive it - otherwise I think it could be sent as an email attachment to be loaded on the computer later), and whether it should be saved as a pdf file or jpg. There are other formats for saving it in as well but I haven't tried that yet. There's also a way to optically capture the text and turn it into a text document which I think can be edited (for those without the expensive Acrobat Writer which allows editing of PDF files but costs a few hundred dollars). I know some of the above is very simple and naive, but I've included for folks like myself who have no idea what they were looking for. It easily prints in color or black. It has a duplexer. I'm not sure I'll care that much about printing two-sided documents, but I love the either of feeding 2-sided documents in the ADF (auto document feeder) and being able to copy or scan them without standing there and changing pages. That was a huge factor for me in getting this over the MX700 which doesn't have a duplexer. At first I hadn't considered the convenience of copying and scanning 2-sided documents by loading the sheets in the ADF, pressing a button and walking away. That's convenient. This printer is also remarkably quiet. I was used to loud functioning from my HP PSC 950 and didn't realize printers could be so quiet. I could even carry on a business call without interference. I'm thrilled with this machine (which Dell has for $239 - best price I found). Even my husband who saw no reason for obsessing about this choice is amazed at how much functionality and ease of use is packed into a $240 machine. When he saw what it did, he assumed I'd paid over $500. Lynn.

Well, this tightwad (me) had her cartridges go empty maybe a year ago. I bought a refill kit on Ebay, and filled both the black and the color. The color was an off color, so I just quit using it (color)altogether, and choose to print most all things in black quick print, thus saving ink with that too. Needless to say, I'm not doing photos, or anything that has to have the color to make it worthwhile. I suppose if I ever do, I'll just have a friend print it for me, or get it at the library, for a few cents per copy. Now, does that put me in the running for resident tightwad? I get my Epson cartridges on eBay;they're a generic type & work just fine. Even w/shipping, I end up paying about $1.14 for the black ones. To stretch that dollar even further, I take the empties to Staples where I get a $3.00 credit;my copy paper ends up costing me $.99 a ream. I'll take a bow, now, for being the resident tightwad. Is that right? $1.14 for a black cartridge? Wow...what a bargain! After 4.5 years, it still spits out the pages without problems. The new Canon brand refill cartriges are about $12. Other brands are cheaper. Sounds like a terrific printer and very resonable replacement cartidges. Hmmmm, when I am forced to buy new cartridges (can no longer fill these), I may be in the market for a newer printer, which is cheaper to 'run'. Sue