Find an appropriate sized cardboard box. (They have these at the post office, but I often reuse old Amazon boxes and the like.)
Stuff it with the object you wish to ship and any necessary padding materials so that it doesn’t slide around.
If your box has anything potentially confusing on it—inapplicable warning labels, old shipping addresses, etc., -- cover them up or black them out with a marker. (I had to do this when I reused a box that had warnings about liquids).
Find a way to put the destination and return addresses on the box. You can just write on the box with a marker, or you can write on a separate sheet of paper. Address it like you would an envelope (destination in the center, return address in the top left corner).
Tape it up good with packing tape (available at CVS). Tape all the seams. If you wrote the address on a separate sheet of paper, make sure all the edges of the paper are taped to the box.
Take it to your US Post Office, bring the sealed box to the counter and ask for it shipped “parcel post” (unless your box only contains books and CDs, in which case you can ask for “media mail” and it will be slightly cheaper). They will weigh it, print a stamp, stick it onto the box, charge you money, and you’re done.
More notes:
If the object fits inside a Priority Mail flat-rate envelope (even if it is bulging), that might be the best way to ship it, especially because of the convenience (no special materials or tape required). For example, you can reasonably fit about 3 DVDs into the flat-rate envelope.
The Post Office won’t ship liquids. For that you have to go to UPS or FedEx, and even then, some states might have laws against shipping liquids, so you could be out of luck.
My protocol is:
Find an appropriate sized cardboard box. (They have these at the post office, but I often reuse old Amazon boxes and the like.)
Stuff it with the object you wish to ship and any necessary padding materials so that it doesn’t slide around.
If your box has anything potentially confusing on it—inapplicable warning labels, old shipping addresses, etc., -- cover them up or black them out with a marker. (I had to do this when I reused a box that had warnings about liquids).
Find a way to put the destination and return addresses on the box. You can just write on the box with a marker, or you can write on a separate sheet of paper. Address it like you would an envelope (destination in the center, return address in the top left corner).
Tape it up good with packing tape (available at CVS). Tape all the seams. If you wrote the address on a separate sheet of paper, make sure all the edges of the paper are taped to the box.
Take it to your US Post Office, bring the sealed box to the counter and ask for it shipped “parcel post” (unless your box only contains books and CDs, in which case you can ask for “media mail” and it will be slightly cheaper). They will weigh it, print a stamp, stick it onto the box, charge you money, and you’re done.
More notes:
If the object fits inside a Priority Mail flat-rate envelope (even if it is bulging), that might be the best way to ship it, especially because of the convenience (no special materials or tape required). For example, you can reasonably fit about 3 DVDs into the flat-rate envelope.
The Post Office won’t ship liquids. For that you have to go to UPS or FedEx, and even then, some states might have laws against shipping liquids, so you could be out of luck.