All But The Travel Trade Show!

Are you participating in this

"Trade Show In A Box"??

WE ARE!

We have just been given the number of stores and are happy to hear that nearly 200 stores across the US signed up!

So, we are creating our papers to ship to you! We want them to be generic enough that a scrap or stamp store could use them; that they could be used in scrapbooking or Pocket Page style work; and we are trying to keep our colors neutral for you... These are a few of the designs that we are contemplating.

Let us know what you think and if you signed up, what would YOU like to receive? Maybe it's something we hadn't considered!!

NOTE! Styles, colors, papers may vary from what is shown here - these are merely possibilities. We haven't finalized our order yet.

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.

And The Award Goes To...

I'm a "numbers gal" (along with being a crafter - YES! You can be both at the same time!!)

so I love looking at the numbers and analyzing things!!

So, in case you are as curious as I am, I thought I'd share our Top 5 most popular templates with you

(well, year-to-date anyway)...

 

In first place:

#908 - Custom Diagonal Spirit Names

This one is BY FAR your most favorite!!!

This template holds the top spot by nearly 2x the #2 position!

 

I love it too!! I like the diversity between the two fonts and font sizes.

Plus, I think that the fonts were really good choices!

And I like the ability to have two different lines of text.

 

If you could, is there anything you would change??

 

 

 

In second place is:

#906 - Custom Spirit Names

Also quite a leader ahead of our third place template, this template is extremely popular.

 

Probably because of the two different lines of text with the ability to customize each color.

Why do you like it?

 

 

 

Coming in at #3 is

#1820 - Make It Your Own

You guys LOVE to customize!!!

 

And, stay tuned because we are still fine tuning our full-page-image-upload template,

PLUS, I have some other fun ideas in store for this template that I hope to share with you soon!

 

 

 

Your #4 selection is

#901 - Custom Marbled

We like to do companion pages with this one leaving one of the sets of words as "No Color" so that you can make a set that go together, but are different. It encourages customers to buy two sheets instead of just one.

The "suggestive sell" helps both the customer and the store! The customer gets informed about how to use the product and the store gets a higher average ticket.

 

 

 

And still making a strong showing at #5 is:

#927 - Custom Varied Spirit Names

I *love* this template!! I will admit, however, that it can be frustrating with certain word combinations...

I have that on my UBER long list of "to do's": to see if there is something that can be done about it. Unfortunately, my gut feeling is "no".... we'll probably have to live with it like it is!

Our workaround is to switch around words or add words to make things work out a bit better.

I still love it, in spite of its periodic frustration!!!

 

And, in case you were curious... here are the rest of the top 10:

#6 - 922

#7 - 921

#8 -907

#9 - 904

#10 - 926

 

 

 

 

So... what do you think???

 

Do you agree?

Do you completely disagree??

Which is your favorite?

And, do I dare ask, which is your least favorite????

 

The disaster area that *IS* my desk!!!!

Oh my goodness! You cannot imagine the mess on my desk right now, but it's all for a REALLY good reason!!!

 

The new color swatches arrived!!! YAY!!!

 

.... and boo....

 

Eggshell was an epic failure. :( 

It is this weird, pink-ish, lavender-ish, grey-ish... blech!

 

To create a new one will add at least a week to this process and if you haven't been completely following along, we can't add new templates or make very many changes until we choose new colors....

 

So....... No Eggshell !!!! (for now, anyway)

 

 

Seafrost however is *BRILLIANT* if I do say so myself!! Does it look familiar at all??

 

It is "Tiffany" Blue!!! So, as we head towards more templates that will work for party favors (more specifically: Wedding Favors) this color will be KEY!! And the sages turned out ok. I love Light Sage. Dark Sage is more yellow than I wanted, but I'm going to stick with it.

 

 

The next step is a "pow-wow" with the web peeps and my "wish list".

 

 

I'm starting with a little more reorganization...

Does it bug anyone else that when you log in, you get the FAQ's instead of the catalog?

I'm asking to change that.

 

And, while we are on that topic, I'm asking that when you log out,

you get redirected HERE!! To our blog!!!

It's the best place for information about CSS and what we are doing and ideas and suggestions!

 

Also, I'm trying to take out some of the dead space in the FAQs... I just don't "get" all of the extra lines...

(I'm a little "OCD")

 

 

NEXT! Add the new colors, but also reorganize some of the old ones and make new swatch samples (and fix that annoying type-o in the color "Chacoal" on our swatch sample.... really?)

 

 

 

And then there were templates...

 

We can only change a few templates per month, per our agreement.

 

I'm starting with #922

because I *LOVE* it and think it is underutilized and maybe a little "misunderstood" (lol). Plus, it has 2 errors in it (we already fixed one mistake, but there are 2 more...)

So, we'll add the new colors, fix the mistakes, and ADD FONT OPTIONS!!!

 

YAY!

 

 

But next, I really need your feedback!!!

 

PLEASE???

 

What do you think should be next????????????

 

 

#913 Custom Flourish 2

it's in the running to be next.

I'd like to add font options AND text size (so it doesn't need to be so tiny).

I also would like the option to not have the flourishes (if possible)

And I would like to have the option to have a solid background

(right now, you can only get a white or black solid background)

Thoughts???

 

 

#1808 Corkboard

it is also in the running.

It actually has a LOT of flexibility (did you see our blog post about it?)

but the fonts could be improved.

I'm looking to add new font choices and sizes,

plus allow for left/right/center justification.

 

 

Or maybe #921 Custom Stripe 1?

It's pretty popular, but could we make it better?

Add font options?

Allow you to center justify the "Text A"?

 

 

Or #905 Custom Cotton?

It's a good, solid paper, but I'd like to see:

• font options

• left/right/center justification

• font size options

Anything else on YOUR wishlist?

 

 

And #999/#904 Custom Leather Grains

I love them both (with "no color" for the bar color)

We order them a lot for our store...

They are both good, solid templates. Ordering is strong.

But if we added font options, would you like it better?

 

 

 

So, seriously, LET US KNOW!!!!

 

If you don't want to post on the blog, then email us!!

info@customscrapbookstuff.com

 

 

 

 

 

Military

Do you have a lot of Military members in your community? Maybe there is a base near you or a training camp? What about creating a paper for them?  It can be generic to one branch, or specific to your area. These are a few that our staff designed:

"US Army"/"Army of One"

 

 

"Marines"/"Semper Fidelis" 

 

"USCG"/"Semper Paratus"

 

"US Air Force"/"Aim High"

"US Navy"/"Est 1775"

 

 

#904 Custom Leather Grain

I'm so surprised to see that customers don't order this style more often... It allows for a lot of versitility and allows a lot of space for pictures.

This paper has a border. There are two companion pages that show the border for a left and right page.

Here, we took the border out using "No Color".

So, this is White, White, No Color, Blue for the textured background for this school:

 

Or.... if you want to take the texture out, then, reverse the colors and have

blue, blue, no color, no color and:

 

 

Let us know your thoughts about this template!!!

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!!!

Color? Who needs color?!!!!

The importance of "No Color"

Did you know that it is a color choice on our templates??? And it can make a BIG difference!

This is something that we will be talking about a lot becuase it can really change the entire feel of a paper and completely change the use of a template.

We already showed you this one:

#1809-Custom Lockers

 

On the left is where the locker is silver, on the right it's "No Color" and the locker is gone:

 

 

And we showed you this one:

#914-Custom Flourish 3

 

On the left, the background is a color, making a texturized background.

On the right, the background is "No Color" making the background a solid white.

 

 

But check this one out:

#1810-Cheer

 

The left paper is clearly a cheerleading paper. The right paper is a paper for any sport!

On the right, again, the Pom Poms were made "No Color"

 

 

And look at this one:

#907-Custom Waves

 

The left one is a beach paper.

The right one is for ANYTHING!

Just make both waves "No Color" and choose your background color!

 

 

One more example:

#904-Custom Leather Grain

 

The left is regular.

In the middle, the border is "No Color".

On the right, both the border and the background are "No Color".

 

 

Like I said, we'll be playing around with this one a lot more but these hopefully will get you thinking about the diversity that these templates have!

 

What will you create?

 

Enjoy!