CHA Debrief Volume 2: Custom Paper For Babies - Another Take....

So, Connie also made this adorable baby boy layout with 922.

This paper was created before 922 had the font choices added, so how there are 4 font choices aside from this one.

 (sorry the background is so pink.... I took these pictures very early one morning on a dull day... I'll replace the photo when we have a bright morning)

 

But, maybe you have the name all picked out, but haven't had the baby yet, you can use the papers for shower invitations, pregnancy announcements, and, of course, your scrapbook layouts!!

I'll try to get the rest of our samples from CHA up here within the next week.

 

I hope you are enjoying what you are seeing!!!

 

50th Anniversary and more! -- #922 again because we love it!!

Have you seen the changes to to #922??? 

These changes have allowed for some AMAZING papers!!!

#922 has turned into one of our favorites!
Have you seen what we've done???

50th Anniversary is SO hard to find!!!

Now you can make your own!

We have lots of golds/crafts/yellows to choose from...

And, what if you did it for a specific year?? 

You only need to make 12, so do you think you will have enough customers to buy 12 sheets of that year?

It's doable!!

Or, take a preorder for ones with specific names and/or dates!

Another idea...

royal blue

Doesn't it SCREAM 'water'???

Sunny Southern California doesn't get a lot of publicity in the scrapbooking world... so make your own!

We'll be focusing on this paper again soon, so stay tuned!

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!!

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????

 

Congratulations!!

One of our long-time employees has just graduated from San Diego State University with her BA in History. She has been with us since High School! 

 

She worked so hard, did great, worked for us all through her years there, and we are all so proud of her!!

So, we closed the store early last night and all of the staff went out to a local Mexican restaurant for a dinner in her honor.

 

She is going on a cruise with her boyfriend in about a week, and she LOVES the Eiffel Tower so I found this cute, eclectic necklace and couldn't resist:

 

I wrapped it in tissue and then, of course, put it in an SRM pillow box, used a strip of our paper, some ribbon, and an SRM sticker for the packaging:

 

 

 

 

and Voila!!

 

 

a VERY quick and easy package for her gift!

 

 

Congratulations again Mandy!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Please note - you need to observe caution when creating paper for colleges and universities. Only use non-licensed words and phrases.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Free Stuff!!!

So, good news, bad news...

Based on the AMAZING response to our post about using our papers for custom invitations, starting 4/15/13, we offered to you that if you placed a $50* order for product and requested our "deal" via email, we said we would ship you 6 half-sheets of custom paper,
plus 6 medium pillow boxes from SRM Press at no charge.

Well, we picked up the pillow boxes a couple of weeks ago and the paper came in the other day.

BUT, I'm a dork and I only ordered 5 papers.... our offer was for 6 papers (DUH!)

So, you have two choices:

1) you can wait for us to get the 6th paper into stock (another 3-4 weeks), or

2) you can accept the 5 half-sheets plus 5 pillow boxes now... still at no charge for orders of more than $50*

These are our current 5 papers that we created and will be sending out (a half sheet of each).

We want you to use flowers, ribbon, twine, etc, that you have in your store to create samples to show your customers how they can use custom paper for party favors, invitations, etc.

Since we have a minimum of 12 sheets per style, you can easily place an order for the paper designed specifically for one customer.

Place your $50* order now and email us to say that you want "the deal" and we'll mail it out to you!

(If you want to wait for a 6th style to be available, please let us know in your email).

*$50 is before shipping.

Graduation is just around the corner!!!

It's time to stock up on Graduation papers

for your local schools!

#909

This paper allows you to customize the color of the mortar board, tassle, and ribbon. You can also add in two lines of text. Do you see in the middle where is says "Your School Here"? That's one and it shows in 5 places. And then there is a repeating (small) "2013"  towards the top right and then the middle left and then further down on the left.

#922

This is a great template for graduation, "Class of ...", a school name, or even the name and/or degree of a person. What about a whole elementary classroom? LOTS of choices! And you can make the borders the same color as the rest and remove the lines.

 #910

Choose the background color, the mortar board color, and then colors for the two rows of text.

You can do the Senior class for your local High School(s).
Or, maybe a specific classroom wants to do a paper for Mrs. Golden's First Grade Promotion.

Or use them for graduation announcements for a specific person, a specific degree, a specific date, etc.

LOTS of choices!!

 

#908

GREAT for invitations/graduation announcements!

 

Use them for a specific School, a Specific Class, or a specific person!

Maybe someone is graduating from Grad School....

Substitute their name and their degree!

 

 

Some other papers that would be great for invitations, party favors, or scrapbook pages:

 

#906

 

#921

 

 

Pillow Boxes!!!

I just picked up the Pillow Boxes from SRM for our promotional offer...

Due to the OVEWHELMING response we had to our email about using our papers for party favors (featuring SRM Pillow Boxes), we are offering a deal to stores who order $50 in papers or more at once...

Eventually, we will have an "item" on our ordering portal, but until then, order $50 in product or more and then email us to tell us you want the "deal" and when we have it ready, we will send you (at no charge) 6 sample sheets of paper, plus 6 medium pillow boxes from SRM for you to make party favor samples for your store to advertise for weddings, birthdays, bar/bat mitzvahs, quenceaneras, etc.

We're still working on getting the sample papers together for the offer, but you can place your order now and simply email us to say that you want to get the "deal" and when it's ready, we'll ship it to you!!!

Free Samples....

We had SUCH amazing response from our post regarding #922 Custom Stripe - and how you can use it wth SRM Pillow Boxes to make party favors... WOW! I just can't believe the excitement! I'm so glad that you guys liked my idea. YAY!!

Anyway, we are going to print up some samples in several different colors and we'll put them on the website. You'll be able to order a "sample pack" of 6 half sheets, plus 6 SRM Pillow Boxes. It will be an $8+ value, but will only cost $5 and will be free with orders of over $50* in product, plus free freight.

Then you can use the papers and the pillow boxes to make samples at your store using flowers, ribbon, twine and other embellishments that you sell to show customers how quick and easy and INEXPENSIVE these party favors are!

Weddings, Showers, Quenceanears, Birthday Parties, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs... You name it!

Stay tuned! Those will be on the website sometime in April.

And, any order placed starting TODAY, if you want the deal when it becomes available, just place a $50* order and then shoot me an email letting me know that you want "the deal" and I'll mail the items at no charge when they are ready!
Have a great weekend everyone!


*$50 is in product, not including shipping.

#922 Custom Stripe 2

Do your customers host a lot of parties? Maybe wedding showers, weddings, baby showers, quinceaneras?

 

Do they need party favors?

 

Use #922 and customize it with names, dates, events, etc. then cut it out in strips and wrap them around these AMAZING Pillow Boxes by SRM Press , wrap with twine or ribbons and/or decorate with flowers and embellishments to make simple, but customized and BEAUTIFUL party favors.

 

SRM's Pillow Boxes come in three sizes and are food safe.

 

We used "Medium" in our sample.

 

If you are interested in SRM Products, their website is:

www.SRMPress.com

Their phone number is: 310-306-1595

 

Tell them that Custom Scrapbook Stuff sent you!!! ♥