Finding a package in the mail is always a fantastic treat, but AmberLee takes the art of sending fantastic treats to an all-time magical level.
From candy-colored pencils and bouncy balls to sand toys and a bubble-wrapped hopscotch set, she has pretty much sent it all. Successfully! The trick is to make sure everything is clearly labeled, and 13 ounces or less.
This is the sort of project kids would go nuts for! I’m inspired to think of an object — something fun and French — my children can send to cousins State-side. Secretly, I’m also wishing AmberLee was my very own pen-pal.
What’s the oddest item you’ve ever sent or received in the mail?
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
So ingenius!!!
Once on vacation in the Outerbanks we found little “message in a bottles” that you could mail and my kids and I sent them to the neighbors…they were tre cute!
BTW, I saw your House Hunters episode and was SO glad you picked the house you did…what a dream to live somewhere so beautiful!!
I read about this somewhere last week and I just love it! I once sent a hula hoop in the mail from Canada to Australia. The idea of it still makes me laugh. Postage wasn’t even expensive – maybe $5 – because it was so light! Too too funny! It arrived in one piece and in the same shape (with one minor dent). Crazy, right?
Oh my goodness, my head is now spinning with ideas! Love it. We did receive a coconut and a pumpkin in the mail before and I thought those were pretty clever. My nieces and nephews (and friends!) would just love this. Thanks for the happy link.
p.s. when my husband was in high school he sent a friend a little lizard in an animal cracker box that he caught while on vacation in Florida. It actually survived and jumped out of the box when his friend received it a couple days later.
Long live the USPS!
If this were FB, I would so *like* this! A lizard, that his parents let him mail, genius!
Ok, this is unusual and gross…I worked for a dining coupon company years ago as a customer service rep. A customer mailed me HIS STEAK which he was contending was smaller than normal because he was using a coupon. It was nasty and slimy when it got to me. Well, you did ask! :)
I love this. Working with kids, and having a Secret Sister group that I am in…. these have inspired a whole new level of…. “Making eyes light up – ness”
Thanks!
When I was about 12 my friend and I sent a Banana – it arrived, just a little brown. We also send a record without sleeve, kind of like a postcard and it arrived as well.
The oddest item was not so very odd – a potty – but it was just wrapped a little bit, so I had to go to the post office to pick up this potty shaped parcel. It would have been cuter had it just had the address label stuck right on, but it was still exactly shaped like its contents. The mail people thought it was pretty funny, actually.
WHen my husband was a kid, his uncle sent him a coconut from Hawaii. He had painted a fun picture on it and then wrote the addresses right on it. No wrapping.
My boyfriend was cycling in Gaspésie, a few hundred kilometers from home. He sent me a rock he had found on the beach with a big stamp on it. I was 17 and madly in love (and still am).
A few years ago while on a Florida vacation we sent a “message in a bottle” to our daughter’s new in-laws who live in the Netherlands. It caused quite a stir in their village post office. So much so that they had to come to the post office to retrieve their mail. Everyone gathered around to see what was in the bottle…some sand, a plastic palm tree, a few small shells, and a photo of us waving a hello! Your mention of this has rekindled my desire to try this again!
When I was 14 and living in American Samoa my Mom sent a coconut with the address and stamps right on it to my siblings who lived in the states. A few weeks later we got a sternly worded letter from the US Agriculture Department letting us know what a bad idea it was and how my Mom was single-handedly corrupting the United States. They let her know that her name was now on a “list.”
This is the coolest thing ever! I can’t imagine what the kids would do if a bouncy ball came in the mail for them. Great share:)
I love this! I adore getting mail (NOT BILLS), and I rarely do. What a joy it would be to receive something like this….hmmmm maybe my 4 year old can receive something cute from Santa???
When I was an undergraduate I drank A LOT of diet coke. For my birthday my friend Maggie mailed me a diet coke bottle with a rolled-up message inside! She stuck the mailing label and stamps right to the bottle. Later, she mailed one of our friends a tray from the Yale dining hall. Stamps on the front, letter on the back!
I can’t wait to fill a bottle with gum balls as a surprise for my goddaughter!
Gasp – this is the coolest thing I have seen all year… Our post office is very boring even trying to refuse to post my kids letters that are smothered in stickers… I am wondering what they would do if I arrived with um… a frisbee say!!! Oh the fun!!! Love it!!!
I mail weird stuff all the time. One year, on my nieces and nephews birthdays, I mailed them Wichita State University t-shirts stuffed inside of a big, yellow foam finger. I put a label on the back side of the finger and it mailed for $2.
One of my dear friends from High School sent me an Apple, a plastic Granny smith with a big heart on it! I think I still have it, it was by far the best mail I ever got!
I just love the concept of mailing the unusual and unexpected … At Easter this year, I mailed about 15 individual plastic eggs to various people. It was so much fun coming up with funny little things that fit (a lot harder than you’d think!), that I kept running to the store for MORE eggs… nieces, nephews, siblings, friends! My postal clerk thought it was the greatest thing ever. Totally fun!
Currently, I’ve got a plastic bottle sitting on my desk and I’ve been trying to decide A) what to put in it, and B) who to send it too. Oh, decisions decisions!
Oh this is SO cool! Will have to try out Australia Post and send something to my littles – just thinking how they would squish a BIG ball into our teeny letterbox or if we would get a parcel pick up notice…I can just see our postman on his scooter balancing hula hoops in his sack!
Isn’t Amber Lee the greatest?! And her ticket chocolate~I’m dying to try it!
xo
Mer
When I was in junior high, my family and I sent unwrapped coconuts to all of our friends from our vacation time in Hawaii. For one of our friends, we had forgotten to write a note or say who it was from on the coconut. My friend and her brother played baseball with the thing trying to get it open because they thought something was on the inside. I don’t think they ever succeeded:)
When I was young I received a coconut from Hawaii from my friend. I was ecstatic when it came in the mail.
every year, “the mysterious great pumpkin” delivers mouthwatering pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to the doorstep of each child in the neighborhood on Halloween day. i wish i could hide behind the corner and see the look on each child’s face as they open the door to find this beautifully decorated package full of goodies. of course, you have to ring the door and run and hide quickly! giving is sooo rewarding.
That is so cool! I’ve never seen that blog before and it’s so cute!
I love AmberLee’s blog and creativity. My 4 yr old and I put together Easter eggs last April and sent them to all my nieces and nephews. My nieces at BYU loved the surprise, especially since it arrived during finals. And my daughter LOVED sending them.
You can still mail a coconut from Hawaii — the post office on Molokai is worth the trip there, with the mailman who should be a spokesman for the whole USPS. He has the coconuts and markers, and takes the time to pick the prettiest stamps to affix to the coconuts. We sent them this summer and they were a HUGE hit.
A design friend and I used to see what we could get away with sending back and forth in the mail. String with the letters attached by bits of paper. An old shoe with a message written inside. I still have some of the mail she sent to me and I wonder if she still has mine. Yes. The postal service delivered it all.
My husband received a fun piece of mail once! His friend was spending the summer in desert in the midwest, so he sent my husband a package, a very large but lightweight box.. Inside the box, a GIANT tumbleweed!
In high school my bff’s boyfriend worked one summer at a scout camp out of state we mailed him a shoe, a rock, a deck of cards, but the best was the cookies. We took a few soup cans (with labels removed, and thoroughly washed) that we’d opened with one of those openers that take off the whole top. We used them as the cookie cutters and then put the baked cookies inside and super glued the tops back on. (you cover the last cookie with a little wax paper to protect from the glue) Then we wrote on the address and covered them with stamps. He said they were still fresh when he got them!