KevinGraham – Page 7 – custompaper.com/blog

May 10, 2013

Was this a mother’s day gift in the making?

A few days ago we shipped out a small order to a customer on the other side of the country. We talk to many of our customers over the phone as they place their order or before they complete the order and sometimes even right after they put the order through online when they call to just make sure they did it right. But not everyone calls. Sometimes we are just left to wonder what the items we box up for them are going to become. When this simple pair of items was sitting on the shipping table ready to be boxed I had to look closer and marvel at how nicely the colors went together. I was so impressed with the match that I quickly snatched it up with a promise to return it ASAP. The resulting photograph is shown here. I always like seeing when our work pairs up this nicely. It does make me wonder; was this destined to become an invitation set, perhaps hand made thank you notes or maybe simply a gift for a mom who loves to create with her own hands.

silk ribbon and pink larkspur flowers — Pink larkspur petals and our pink edged silk ribbon blend #046.

We occasionally receive photos and sometimes handmade cards from happy brides who have made their own invitations from our papers. It is always rewarding to see the amazing results of our customers hard work and talent. But more often then not we are left wondering just what became of the pretty things that we shipped off.

Wishing you all a happy Mother’s Day weekend and hoping that you find time to work on a project of your own with the people that mean the most to you in your life.

Kevin

You too can have this lovely set of items. You will find the blend #046 silk ribbon here and you can find the pink larkspur pressed flowers here.

May 6, 2013

SEED PAPER PROMOTIONAL GOODS

Recently we have been highlighting some of our custom commissioned projects on the blog. Many fall within the event/wedding industry, and some are in a unique category all their own. One sector of the business that we are particularly excited about, largely because of how it speaks to businesses making better choices on their environmental impact, are the promotional materials we produce on seeded papers.

Seed paper flyer that blooms when planted — Seed paper promotional handout for a go green project

Wal-Mart seed paper promo — Seed paper that sprouts wildflowers when planted

We work with numerous advertising agencies to create promotional materials for their environmentally focused client projects. In the past we have collaborated on collateral for companies such as BBDO Atlanta, Environmental Defense, Walmart, International Paper, Fortune Magazine, Time inc, GE, Home Depot, Ivie Inc, Martha Stewart Magazine, Nieman Marcus, Paul Mitchell and have even produced Christmas cards for Yahoo!

Seed paper flyer — Grand opening seed paper flyer for Greenfire Campus

These flyers were created for sustainable community Greenfire Campus who “aims to achieve a practical balance between green construction and cost-effectiveness.”

We encourage and welcome business of ALL kinds to reconsider the production of seed paper promotional goods. As illustrated here, being a steward of the environment is not only restricted to companies that market themselves as “green”. When you consider that these custom seed paper flyers can be produced for less than $1.00 each it is hard to imagine why you wouldn’t join this green movement. Just imagine, your next promotion can not only generate new leads, new sales and new revenue, it can also generate oxygen as the plants that sprout from the seed paper clean the air! If you want to rethink the approach to your next print campaign, let us know – we would love to brainstorm options with you!

April 26, 2013

CUSTOM PROJECTS

What do we do? We make paper and ribbon, right? Piece of cake. Two products, easy peasy. Well no actually, we have over four thousand inventory items currently featured on our website and thousands more when you consider the custom work we offer. This includes everything from the aforementioned Accommodation Cards to Memorial Invitations. Since starting this business eighteen years ago, we have greatly increased the breadth and depth of our collection. While we continue to expand and take on a variety of products outside wedding planning, invitations and promotional events, we always welcome the opportunity to take on custom projects.

We created this custom silk ribbon for our friends at Tiny Pine Press in California who needed to match a fabric color for invitations and wedding day decorations.

We took on a custom matching dilemma for Susan Hammer of Fontastic in Georgia. Ultimately this order did not go with our hand dyed silk. We could not match the effect created in this Dupioni silk where threads of different colors are woven together and seem to shift color from different angles. We were able to provide a ribbon for her wedding programs, just not one we dyed by hand.

A beautiful custom place card for an English bride. This customer has been working with us for close to a year planning her wedding. Tomorrow is the big day! April, 27 2013. We are very excited for her and all of the couples we have the pleasure of working with.

If you are in need of a custom piece, please contact us directly. Some of our favorite and most innovative works come directly from client commissions.

April 18, 2013

WEDDING ACCOMODATION CARDS: THE BASICS

For many of our customers the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of paper in the wedding planning process is invitations. And while the invitation is obviously a vital part of the package, there are many supplemental materials that often need to be included with the star of the show. Accommodation cards, depending on your style of wedding, serves an integral role in providing wedding details.

Accommation Card — Torn edge recycled paper accommodation card

Wedding Accommodation Cards 101:

The purpose of a wedding accommodation card is to provide out of town guests with a selection of hotels in a range of prices. These cards often contain information on bridal party group rates if you have made arrangements with your local hotels. You can cut printing costs and paper usage if you can combine this card with your direction/map card. This card is an appropriate place to include information on activities if you anticipate your guests will have time to soak in the local culture.

We often suggest this card as the best location for planting instructions for our seeded papers. Letting your guests know that the beautiful invitation papers contain live seeds that will sprout if planted is critical if you want your guests to enjoy the bouquet of flowers these papers have the potential to become. Giving them clear information about the seeds will ensure your guests start enjoying your wedding well in advance of your special day.

For text examples and more paper options please check out our online selection.

April 15, 2013

Client Profile: Theo Chocolate

We consider ourselves lucky to call the amazing Seattle-based Theo Chocolate a client. They not only create insanely delicious products, they are also committed social entrepreneurs and conscious stewards of the environment. It is always exciting to see how they incorporate our ribbons and papers into their displays.

Last Friday Theo introduced a new Collection in connection with their “ongoing commitment to sourcing cocoa from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”, the Congo Confection Collection was “designed for Mother’s Day and inspired by the women of Congo (a portion of each box’s sale will benefit ECI’s work with women in the region)”. We created the custom ribbon for this gift set and think it beautifully complements the already colorful and gorgeous package designs.

To learn more about Theo’s commitment to the Congo, please check out their blog. Purchase their Congo Confection Collection here.

Working with businesses, small and large, passionate about using environmentally responsible products and practices is always exciting and encouraging. If you know of a company searching for a way to instill better practice please, send them our way! We create beautiful custom products that meet the strictest client specifications and leave the smallest wake in the process.

April 2, 2013

NEW TO THE STORE

We now carry the ideal invitation kit for the handmade DIY enthusiast! Our plantable handmade seed paper invitation kit creates 25 panel style 5” x 7” invites.

Each Invitation Kit contains: – 25 5×7 inch cut edge panels of our handmade paper(containing flower seeds so they can be planted) – 25 cut to size (4.75″ x 6.75″) printer safe lotka seed paper pieces
– 25 recycled paper machine made invitation envelopes
– 6 yards eco-twist ribbon
– Punching template

Designed for home printing on a laser or inkjet printer, these invites are then punched, and assembled by you. Templates and downloadable instructions can be found here.

All invitation components will break down naturally in soil, but only the invitation panel and overlay contain flower seeds.

Our unique North American Wildflower seed blend tolerates partial shade; needs 4 hours a day of direct sunlight and grows to about 3′. Seeds include these perennials and annuals: Spurred Snapdragon,Tussock Bellflower, Creeping Thyme, Lilac Godetia, Foxglove, Catchfly, Monkeyflower, English Daisy, Red Corn Poppy and Showy Evening Primrose. This blend is specifically designed for safe propagation in many growing zones.

Germination may begin as soon as one week, or may take up to six weeks depending on your regional growing zone and planting depth. We recommend just 1/4″ soil coverage.

We are happy to swap paper and eco-twist colors. These DIY kits are available for $26.50 for a set of 25.

March 27, 2013

Creative Clients

We have the pleasure of meeting and working with wonderful client and shop owners all over the world. The creative and inventive uses they find for our products never cease to amaze our staff. On occasion, we receive emails from our contacts showcasing the amazing ways they have integrated our paper and ribbon into their displays, and sometimes even into their wardrobe.

Lila Bulis of Lila’s Scrapbooking sent these photos of her lovely display of our handmade papers.

Lila’s is located in Everett, and she currently carries single sheets and cards, pressed flowers, silk ribbon and eco-twist from our line. Her store is a great resource for crafting and scrapbooking aficionados.

A recent customer used our build green ribbon to dress up a hat for her son’s upcoming nuptials. We were both impressed and delighted by her stylish use of the ribbon. “I used the ribbon on the brim and also as a kind of hatband round the scarf, which goes through slots at the side of the crown so that you can tie your hat on in a high wind”. Lovely work, Ceri! Thank you for the inspiration!

Do you have a project you want to share with our readers? Please submit your creations to ote <at> custompaper.com.

March 25, 2013

Custom Hand Dyed Silk Ribbon – Logo and Branding for Business

We are happy to display our newest hand dyed silk ribbon colors! Just in time for spring we came up with this set of three colors pulled from our original watercolor art work. The watercolor work was done to showcase the flowers that sprout from our seed paper; look for the art to grace our new product tags. Using the flowers as inspiration our colorist made these three new blends to welcome spring and our new business branding. We have had the pleasure of custom dyeing silk to match corporate colors, bridesmaids dresses, home decor, stationery and new product launches. We would love to work with you on your next project. With a low minimum requirement (just three spools) it is easy to have just the right look for your newest designs.

Available in five widths and two finishes our hand dyed silk line is the largest and most flexible in the country. Nowhere else can you find such talented craftsmen and women working to produce hand dyed silk goods in small runs such as ours. We are proud of our efforts to not only produce beautiful works but also to do so in an environmentally focused manner.

Let us know how we can help make your design ideas a reality.

Earth Silk custom color matching — Custom color matching hand dyed silks

Earth Silk hand dyed spool #082 — Hand dyed silk ribbon #082 purple lavender

hand dyed silk ribbon blend 080 yellow orange and green — Earth Silk blend 080 yellow orange and green

March 6, 2013

Do it yourself seed paper invitations for just $1.00!

DIY Kit closeup - Plantable paper — Aspen print at home seed paper invitation kit

Print at home invitation kit — Natural seed paper diy kit

We just added new photos of our latest product to help in this economic recovery. Our seed paper DIY kits are prepared with a cut edge finish to save on the hand tearing labor common to our other invitation styles. We also have included felt finish recycled paper invitation envelopes in place of our more expensive seed paper envelopes. This swap has brought the cost of these invitations down do just $1.00 for a fully do it yourself print at home Eco-friendly marvel. The kits are sold in packs of 25 for $25 and can ship with first class mail to you for about $4. Each invitation is meant to be printed at home using an inkjet or laser machine one piece at a time through the envelope feed mechanism. The envelopes have a great raised texture and pair nicely with the handmade stock. There are five colors to pick from. The colored sheets are all dyed with earth friendly vegetable dyes and are ironically named after trees (as they are entirely tree free).

We make these kits in our Seattle paper studio and ship them worldwide, typically within 24 hours. The paper twine used to hold the pieces together can be swapped out for different colors to create more combinations than we show here: http://www.earthinvitations.com/

Our papers contain a blend of wildflower seeds which include varieties that grow in all the growing regions in the US. Read more at www.flowerseedpaper.com

February 15, 2013

Love and Marriage – Seattle style

I was recently asked on our Of The Earth Facebook page if we would have a problem working with a couple from the LGBT community. For those of you who don’t know that stands for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender.

Here is her question:

I want to share your page because I think this is pretty awesome but I need to know if you have a problem with doing invites for LGBT before I do. I would have in boxed but I couldn’t. So you can delete this and inbox me. (I’m not starting trouble, just don’t want to promote to my friends who are in the LGBT community if you don’t offer them services). Thanks.

And my reply:

Of The Earth Myssi – The best part about working in the wedding industry is being in constant contact with people who are head over heels in love with each other. It doesn’t matter who they are, how old or young, how fit or flabby, their skin color, political party or gender – we love being a part of folks getting married! The more people we touch with our earth friendly wedding dogma, the better!

Wednesday at 7:58am · Like

I wanted to share this with you here as I have struggled over the years with sharing personal views in a business setting as it is always important to find new customers and I don’t want to alienate anyone just because we don’t agree on everything. The time for that timid behavior is over.

In Washington state people from the LGBT community were finally given the right to marriage equality in December. This long overdue passing of law should help us as a country continue to recognize how much alike we all are. In subtle ways the differences between all people should continue this slide into acceptance of one another. We all struggle in life with real challenges. Having additional barriers in our way put up by small minded people needs to stop and I am happy to witness that change happening.

As another Valentine’s Day passes I am again reminded that like with the rest of the holidays we celebrate in this country we should not stop celebrating mothers, or fathers, love, the birth of this great country or the veterans that have fought and died defending it just because their respective holiday has passed. Each day we should celebrate the people in our lives with kindness and love. Be grateful that you have another day to live and breathe. Hold doors open for people, smile when you make eye contact with a stranger, tell the people close to you how important they are. Too soon it is all over and your chance to say the things you wanted to say has passed.

Do it now. Celebrate every day. Love universally.

Okay, back to work.

Kevin