Packing Pictures
 

OK,

Just assessing what to pack and what not to pack as well as how to take some things.

Heres the dumb question from a newbie - Is it stupid to take take framed pictures. Wrapped in bubble wrap of course.

In reality is it better, especially for the larger pieces, to roll them up and pack them into postal tubes - less space and weigh hence cost to ship.

Just wondered what peoples advices and experiences were here.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

The framed "wall art" pictures we brought were packed and shipped in individual framed picture boxes. Smaller framed family photos were bubble wrapped and packed in a single shipping box.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Not a silly question at all! We brought ours - the small ones were paper and bubble wrapped, the larger normal sized ones went in picture boxes, and we had a couple that were non-standard shape/size that the movers made a specific wood/plywood crate for. All of them got here fine.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Ditto this.

As the original question asks about cheaper costs, I would note that in my experience getting anything custom framed here is very expensive, so you could save money on shipping and then pay more than that to get stuff re-framed.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Are we talking valued framed artwork? If so consider professional packing.

Non-professional tips include covering the surface of the glass in packing tape as this keeps it together should it break. Placing a sheet of hardboard front and back is a good idea as it prevents things spearing the picture.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Depends...usually get massive sales on for places like Michaels and the other craft shops.

Also some small indie art galleries can be pretty cheap too. Does quickly mount up though that's for sure.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

All good stuff - and thanks so much.

Mind if I change tack?


Here's another dilemma - its a bit techy - I have my PC but clearly it would be dumb to take it but a friend said. Remove the hard drive (complete with Windows, data files, music documents etc), take it on as carry on. Then once state side, get a PC built but supply your hard drive(s).

you may be aking why not just back it up onto an external drive. Well, yeah. Could do. Only thing is I have tons of music, plus original compositions in propiretary formats on the hard drive.

Anyway, that's about it for dilemma number 2.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Certainly your plan would likely work, though I would make at least one additional back-up copy of your files otherwise you'll be risking losing everything to loss of, or damage to, your hard drive. Cloud-based back-up might be a good alternative, or addition, to a thumb drive.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

Our pc was a 'dual power source' as read on the label, so we brought the pc here cut of the uk plug and replaced with a us plug and it worked fine. Initially we brought converters and plugged the screens into those before plugging into sockets but we didn't have a shipping limit so you could buy screens here easily enough.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

We packed all our pictures in bubble wrap then into the moving boxes with lots of foam peanuts - didn't have a single issue.

With the PC(s) we did exactly that. Brought four or five hard drives as hand luggage. Got a bit of a strange look at security but they fully appreciated what we were doing when explained. In hind sight I should have shipped the PC case (sans HDDs) as it was a rack server. Oh, and we did ship the LCD monitor too.

Re: Packing Pictures
 

The PC will be fine, just get a new power cord for it.

Still worth backing up online. Can use Adrive.com and get 50gb free, or stuff like copy.com which starts you out with 15gb free, but easy enough to increase that.