in a nutshell it is... It must be less than 3/4 " thick, so if you are sending numerous packs, it is best to tape them down so they don't shift and slide, and bunch up on one side or the other. It they bunch up, and are over 3/4 inch, they are then subject to parcel rates which are considerable more. There is a lot of discussion about it on the Conversation side here. Your question comes up too on a search. Bubble envy postage has been the subject of the Great Debate ever since the rates were raised earlier this year. Sue

I like them in individual envelopes and ready to go to the next person. I buy small plastic bags in the wedding department at Walmart for mine. As long as the seeds are dry they work fine. If someone has asked you for a specific thing and they are part of the swap, just put their name on that envelope that you send in. Yes, I volunteered to do the swap. It is a MUST to include your gardenweb USERNAME in your package. I will post as I receive things, and at the specified mailout time, I will post that they are being mailed. George suggested the number of seeds (25) for the swap. Now would someone like to specify the number of packets to send. Understand that you can send more than that if you want, but not less than the specified amount of packages. Just tell me what you want done with the excess, or otherwise I will just divide it up for everyone. Ilene, the old postage rate of $1.14 was the parcel post rate and sometimes you have to get a little tough with the post office over it. Seeds can travel in a bubble mailer as "large envelope rate" as long as you keep the envelope from being more than 3/4 inch thick. That might mean that you have to tape your bags to a piece of paper before you slide them in the mailer to keep them from shifting around. When you ship "large envelope rate" they will push the envelope through a template to make sure it is not too thick. I guess my feeling about the cost is this: Even if it cost $1.50 each way to get your seeds, you get to try a lot of things for $3.00. A lot of packages of seed cost that much or more, and some of them don't even have 25 seeds in them. Some of you are seed savers and can select right from your own plants. Others of us buy too many and have plenty to share. Some need only a few seed of one type for the season and the others don't get used. I think it is nice to be able to try a few of a variety to see if you like it or if it does well in your garden, before you invest in a bigger quantity....hot peppers come to mind. I would love to have dozens of ancho peppers, but a couple of chili peppers is plenty for me to plant in a season. This year I have about 3 dozen pepper plants, but they are probably 8 or 9 varities. This also provides a challenge for those people who don't normally plant from seed, and an opportunity for those who do to add a few new things to their garden. How many packs????? Also, I would like to limit it to everything being mailed in the same week to ten days, so I don't have them at my house forever. If we set a date, like mail between Nov 1st and 10th, then I could have them all on the way back to you by Thanksgiving and they wouldn't be in my way for the holidays. I think some of you will still be saving seed in October so we probably need to go later rather than earlier. Ideas?

OMG, Ellie! Sending up prayers for your besieged cousin! Elly's bout with uterine cancer, last September, was the absolute scariest thing she & I have ever been through! Whenever I actually thought about it, while Elly was away up north in Springfield for eight days (with her mother, sister and brother, while I remained here with our autistic son), to have her uterus removed, etc., I would personally become physically ill. - God bless and comfort you all!

It depends upon how many and what size of photos you are mailing. I print 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 & 8-1/2 x 11 photos and mail them a dozen times a month. If I am sending 100 4x6 or 5x7 photos I simply put them back in the photo paper box, wrap it with brown paper and mail that as a package. On my Kodak printer I don't have to worry about the ink being dry. The printer has a dryer and they are completely dry as soon as they come out of the printer, providing of course that your printer is set up correctly and only using the correct amount of ink. Fortunate on my Kodak printer if I use genuine Kodak paper the paper has a bar code printed on the back that tells the printer the correct setup for the grade of paper I am using. For smaller quantities I take them right out of the printer, stack them all face up so the printed side of one photo is against the back side of the next one. (do not stack photos with the printed sides touching each other) I then wrap them with a layer of cellophane (saran wrap) but be sure you do not stretch the plastic while wrapping or it will try to shrink back to original size and can distort the photos. I then place a sheet of cardboard on each side, tape that in place and either drop them in a post office mailer or wrap and address them as a package. Check with your post office before sending. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the cardboard mailer envelope at the post office and pay the postage than it is to use a prepaid mailer, all depends upon the weight. If I am sending 8x10 or 8-1/2 x 11 sometimes I slip them in a 3 ring notebook type vinyl document protector then cover with cardboard and again either wrap them and send as a package or buy a mailing envelope at the postoffice. If I am sending 8x10 that are matted the finished size is 11 x 14. For these Jan gets me empty Domino sugar boxes from the grocery store. They are made out of a double layer corrugated cardboard. I then cut a cover sheet of cardboard for front & back, cover the photos with Saran wrap and sandwich between a layer of the double corrugated cardboard and here again, get a mailer from the post office and pay the postage. (For these the price of the mailing envelope & postage is always cheaper than the prepayed boxes or envelopes.) Also, check out the Dollar Tree stores, Family Dollar, Dollar General stores as well as Big Lots. Sometimes you can find small spiral bound books for 4x6 prints that hold up to 24 prints and they are usually very cheap.. We were fortunate because Jan was shopping in Michaels Art & Craft store and she found they were discontinuing some of those small spiral bound book and they were selling them for 5 cents each, so she bought 100.