Bubble envelopes are very useful whenever you want to send something that is somewhat fragile in the mail. They work well for jewel cased Cd’s, boxes and books that you don’t want to see dinged up around the corners. They are also rather light weight so if you can use these instead of a box you are going to come out ahead as far as shipping is concerned.

They normally come in a light brown craft paper color but you can get them in all sorts of vibrant colors some of them are even a shiny metallic foil color and you also find them with patterns on them for holidays. The colored ones usually have a plastic exterior instead of the paper that the brown bubble envelopes are made of. Of course these type of envelopes are going to cost more, this can be as much as 3 times the cost although if you buy them in bulk it will help bring the cost down a bit. They usually have a self sealing sticker edge. This also helps the package become more water resistant.

You can also buy them with a Velcro closure, but I would be careful about doing this because it would make it really easy to steal the item inside or for it even just to get loose in the mail. You might have another use in mind for this type of envelope though.

Try to remember whenever you buy these type of envelopes that the sizes that are given are the total size of the envelope and not the usable size inside of the envelope. Typically you can expect a 1 1/2” difference shorter size to the length of the envelope. The standard sizes for these envelopes are:

• 7.25” x 7”
  
• 4” x 7”
  
• 6” x 9”
  
• 7.25” x 11”
  
• 8.5” x 11”
  
• 8.5” x 13”
  
• 9.5” x 13”
  
• 10.5” x 15”  
  

Things to Keep in Mind when Using Bubble Envelopes

If you plan on using these envelopes you should probably use a sticker to create your address. If you want to write directly on them then a sharpie or any type of marker would probably be best.

If you are thinking about starting a business where you have to ship things, you might want to look at plastic envelopes if you item does not need any protecting because the bubble envelopes are going to cost you more. Things like clothing would not be a good use for bubble envelopes. You should also consider buying them in bulk if you plan on doing a lot of shipping because this will save you some money.

You should probably not use these envelopes for things that are not fragile because they are not good for the environment. If you get these in the mail try to reuse them. It is probably not good to reuse these if you have a business though. You could make yourself a custom stamp (these don’t cost very much to have made) so that you could stamp some sort of thing saying you care about the environment and that is why you recycle bubble envelopes.  You can also use heavy paper envelopes which have become quite popular for books these days. If you are sending a hardback book it may still be a good idea to use the bubble envelopes.