CHA Sneak Peaks...

A sneak of a few samples we are bringing to CHA using our custom paper!!!

CHA is less than 2 weeks away!!!

The biggest trade show for the Scrapbooking (And Craft & Hobby) Industry is less than 2 weeks away.

We will have a booth in the NEW section. We are signed up for booth #2203 (but we are trying to move next door to #2205... We'll see what happens!). Either way, we'll be across the aisle and in between
Hazel & Ruby" and "Little B" so look for us!

I have Tom busily digging through storage to try to find things that we need to bring. We will have sample papers for you to take with you. Yes! If you are a scrapbooker, you will be able to scrapbook your CHA experience!! Here is one of the examples:

Our order of samples arrives tomorrow!!

We're both excited and nervous because this will be the first time that we have exhibited at CHA!

We hope you will come by and see us!!

We're Going to CHA!!!! @CraftandHobby

And this time, we will have a booth in the New Section!!!

We're so excited!!!!

And, please "LIKE" us on Facebook!!! We made it back in February but never did anything with it until now...

Look for "Custom Scrapbook Stuff"

https://www.facebook.com/CustomScrapbookStuff

Template #922 Has Had a MAJOR Facelift!

Joe, our hero at our printing company, 

has updated 922 and has renamed it to be 922.1.

We're still going to do a couple of different takes on it, 

but I'm so excited to show you what we have so far!!

Remember these beauties??

 

Well, we finally got around to editing this template to have more options for you to create wedding and party favors!

So, the original template, you could only do capitals...

But look!! Lower case now!! YAY!

Also, the new colors are added including this one: "Seafrost" 

which is coincidentally the same color as Tiffany Blue :)

But WAIT!! There's more!!

Cursive!!!

Yes, we added some font choices!!! There are 5 right now. I will be changing out some of the fonts as we play with the template and decide what works best with it.

But aren't these so wedding-y now?? 

Some tips and hints...

Want to make the bullet point in your paper?

• 

If you want to insert a bullet to divide your words, press and hold 'ALT' and type in 0149  (this is for PC only)

Note - it doesn't work in every font. Look at your preview to be sure.

ALSO, if you are reprinting an old version of this template, you will need to "Reversion" it.

WARNING!! The old font used to only be in upper case and now is in Upper AND Lower, so you'll want to double check that your characters are right!

We hope you like the changes!!

Wow! It's been a while, eh??

We've been very busy!! We've been updating templates a little and making a long list of future plans...

 

We also made some side trips to some stores in the Reno, NV area and in the Los Angeles area.  We don't have reps so it's just Tom and I so we are trying to visit stores when we have time and are in other areas. We were so excited to meet with store owners and we added some new customers!!! YAY!

 

 

Btw, I just happen to be writing this post on a very tragic day in Sparks, NV. Tom did visit some stores in Sparks and was staying in Washoe Valley so hearing about the school shooting there and the death of a beloved teacher and the events that unfolded 10/21/13 were even more touching to us. Our hearts go out to everyone involved.

 

 

Back to happier news... Hopefully we'll be heading to some stores in the northeast in November.... We'll be in NY and ME and states in between... Where is your store? Maybe we can come and visit!

 

 

So... some changes... how about #918 Custom Calligraphy...?? Man, I REALLY need to change the names of these templates!! And the thumbnails!! UGH!! This one is particularly bad!

 

Now you can change the font size!!

 

24 point

50 point

and 120 point

 

 

Plus there are font choices! We will be changing these font choices soon.

Right now, they are same 5 font choices on #1820. But we'll change them up a little.

 

I also want to make the top words and the bottom words independent from each other. Right now they have to say the same thing and be the same colors and fonts. I hope to change that soon.

 

More changes are on the horizon! :)

Stay tuned!

#1802 - Revisiting "Sports on Fire"

This template isn't ordered a lot... it's not in the bottom 10, but it's not in the top 10 either and I thought we should show some of it's versatility again to see if maybe you are missing out on a gem?

So, this is the current thumbnail suggesting that you use it for football:

But this paper has a lot of options! Here are the other sports available:

• Baseball

• Basketball

• Bowling

• 8-Ball

• Golf

• Hockey

• Soccer

• White Softball

• Yellow Softball

• Tennis

• Volleyball

• Rugby

• Cricket!

Yes! You read those options correctly!

White Softball *AND* Yellow Softball!

And Rugby and Cricket!

How many often can you find items for either of those sports?!!

But, another option that not a lot of you realize, you can SKIP the sport!!!

Just do flames!!

Is something really "hot"?

Or is the local Fire Department doing an event?

Or was there a big bon fire event?

Maybe camp fires are big for you?

Take special orders and choose "Flames" for the option on this template.

Btw, we will be adding font options to this paper.

And maybe another text location....

Not sure yet!

:)

#930 Has Made Some Changes!!

We are working on adding some options into our templates and #930 has a few changes that you might really like!

Well, we really HOPE you like them!!!

 

 

So, initially, you had this:

 

Large tiles. I don't know about you, but I wasn't really a fan...

 

You could choose "No color" for the background, you could get a white solid background,

but that was it:

 

 

Well, now you can choose your background!

 

You can make the tiles smaller:

(a little less intrusive, in my opinion)

 

Or, you can choose SOLID!!!

Yes! Any color can be made a solid background!

 

 

AND!!!! Since this template has been recently modified, it has the 4 new colors available to it!

• Light Sage

• Dark Sage

• Seafrost

• Off White

 

 

With every order, you will get our updated swatch card. Please discard your old one!

So, Yay for #930!!!

And, we aren't done!!!

Let us know what YOU want to see!!!

We *LOVE* your suggestions!

#912 Custom Flourish 1

Wow - I just realized that we have never taken a close look at this template!! It is similar to #913 and #914, but we haven't looked at those in a while either, so let's look at some options for #912....

This template has a few choices... So you choose the words, plus their color. Then you choose the color of the "accent" (the dividing line, box, and flourish). You also choose the color for the top and the color for the bottom. It is usually a "distressed" finish.


These are all for 50th Anniversary - because there is practically NOTHING on the market for this topic, but if a couple makes it this far, SOMEONE is going to want to scrap it!! AND, since you only need to make 12 sheets, you aren't committed to a huge investment....

This one has white text, white accent, craft top, and craft bottom:

This one has craft text, craft accent, "no color" top, and "no color" bottom:

 

This allows the background to be solid white.

 

 

 

For 25th Anniversary, you can do something like this:

 

This one has white text, grey accent, silver top, and charcoal bottom:

This one has white text, silver accent, black top, and black bottom:

Making it a solid black background.

 

 

 

 

Upcoming changes:
We will be changing the order of the color for the top and then the bottom. It annoys me that the bottom color choice is first.  It's counter-intuitive.

Also, we will add some font choices and some will be larger.

I want to also add an option that will allow for any color to have a solid background, if you wish.

When we start working on these changes, we'll also add in the 4 new colors....

Anything that you would like to see changed about this (or any other) template?

School's starting... Is your custom paper section ready???

If schools in your area haven't started already, THEY ARE JUST ABOUT TO!!!!

 

Don't forget to stock up on the local schools.

 

Is high school football popular in your area? Maybe make pages specifically for them.

Remember, since you can make as few as 12 of a style, you aren't forced into a big financial commitment....

 

 

 

Maybe ask your customers for a suggestion for which schools to do.

Ask on your blog or on Facebook and get suggestions.

You might be surprised what they want.

 

 

Take preorders. If someone wants you to do a more "obscure" school, tell them that you will so long as you can presell at least half of them. It's only 6 sheets. Have the customers help "recruit" people to prepay...

 

 

 

And don't forget all of the kids who are JUST starting school for the first time!!

Do you have stuff for the "First Day Of School"??

Look at: #1808 Corkboard

It's meant to be a corkboard! Great for elementary school pages!

You can choose the words for both locations and colors for each set of words.

Plus, you can change the border and the background.

So, how about this? A lighter wood border and a "write on/wipe off" board background?

Or switch to #1807 Apple For Teacher

 

Grey as the border is like a computer monitor.

 

This is with "First Day" in the Text A field

 

 This is the same with Text A blank and all of the words in Text B

 

See how the words are lower on the apple?

 

 

Want to add the year? In Text B, you can hit "enter" and force the year to the next line:

 

 

What ideas do you have???

 

 

 

Calendar Papers!!

It's that time!! Customers are making calendars for 2014 and you can provide them with the background papers!! We made these and customers love them!!

 

  

  

  

 

 

Sell them open stock for calendars or card making (they make great birthday cards!), or kit them all together at a small discount. You'll get a bigger sale if they buy all of them and the customer will feel they are getting a deal.

 

Kit 12 sheets along with an SRM calendar and calendar date stickers and months at a larger discount and get an even larger sale.  Your customer will get a deal and feel like half of the work has been done for them, and your average ticket will go up!

  

 

NEW COLOR SWATCH!!!

There is a new color swatch available which includes our four new colors:

• Off White
• Light Sage
• Dark Sage
• Seafrost (incredibly similar to Tiffany Blue)

We are working on adding the colors to each template (sorry, they need to be added to each template specifically and individually, so it will take a little while).

All orders placed for the next few months will automatically include a new color swatch whether you order one or not.


So far, the new colors are only in a few templates, but keep your eyes open for them!

Shop Hops!!

Well, we are wrapping up our local shop hop and thought we would share some of the papers that we made. They were EXTEREMLY well received and we had completely sold out after only THREE DAYS and had to reorder more with rushed shipping!! (I honestly don't suggest doing it that way... it was REALLY expensive!)

So, if your area is doing a Shop Hop or Bus Tour, I would suggest that you seriously consider making a couple of styles specifically to your event.

 

Another suggestion is to do several styles. We started with 6 styles and had women buying all 6 styles!

 

These are the styles that we had made.

We did #908 diagonal paper in two different color schemes.

 

And #906 - which is fairly similar - we did in a third color scheme.

Again, several customers bought all of these styles!

 

This is #903 Fancy -  remember that this is an old template that we just brought back.

This print was the most popular out of our first batch of papers:

 

This #927 Varied Spirit was our next most popular out of our initial batch of papers:

You might notice that we have done a lot of green's... that had to do with the theme at our store.

 

 

In our 2nd batch, we added some additional styles in different colors. We did these in teal.

The left one is another one of our recently resurrected templates.

  

 

This was also added in our second batch and was LOVED!
This is 999/904 with the border omitted (use "No Color" in the border choice)

 

 

 

 

We hope that our experience was helpful to you in deciding what to create for your store.

Be sure to check with your local organizer to be certain you can use their name before creating the papers.