Isn't this the coolest looking ribbon? Silver ink on black twill ribbon. It came out great. This order was sent all the way to Australia.
I'm really bummed, my gocco supplies are starting to dwindle so once they are gone, so is my custom silkscreen ribbon offering. So if you've been on the fence about ordering, I'd gently suggest, doing it now!
If anyone out there knows where I can purchase some supplies without paying an arm and a leg, let me know!
I have been getting a lot of inquiries to my custom silkscreen ribbon, it's kinda weird! Out of the 10 emails and phone calls I received, here are two orders that were actually placed. Oliver. is a repeat customer, and Green Gal is new. I have four other people on the fence. Two others who are definitely going to place an order, but need to finalize their artwork. The others, well, they were looking for a 100 yards of ribbon for cheap. I wish I could do cheap... but it's just not doable for me. This custom ribbon stuff takes time! And for a mere $35 bucks, well, I think people are getting something special :)
Just thought I'd show some ribbon that I finished this weekend using my Gocco printer. The type came out so crisp and was easy to print this time around. A lot of time it takes quite a bit of practice to get the ink to lie down on the ribbon nicely. Sorry, the photo of the ribbon isn't the best. I took it late at night.
I know I'm going to get emails asking about this :) So here is the 411:
Nicole will get around 80 tags from this spool of ribbon. In addition to the spool, I cut up and sent her my practice ribbon – which was around 25 tags. So, for those doing the math... that's about .33 cents per tag. Not bad for a custom silkscreen tag :) For those interested, either email me, download my order form located on the right hand side of my blog, or visit my Etsy store for information about ordering ribbon.
I'm sure you've heard the news... but Riso, the owner of the Print Gocco has stopped making supplies. It's getting harder and harder to find supplies for my Gocco baby. I have 2 boxes plus of bulbs, and 9 screens left. I plan to stockpile supplies in the next few weeks. Anyone know of a good supplier? If you do, please let me know! I'll be your best friend :)
So what do we think of 2009 so far? Too early to tell? :)
Thought I'd show you what I put together for the kid's teachers. I always give money towards the class gift, but enjoy putting together packages that are just from Will + Davis too.
For Davis, there are so many people to put packages together for: her main teacher and her assistant, the Spanish teacher that Davis just adores, the woman who changes her clothes when she gets wet or dirty (which is at least once a week} the librarian who helps Davis pick out great books, the two women who take care of Davis during lunch bunch, the head of school and her assistant. That's a total of nine. phew. For William, I only had to make four packages up. One for his Kindergarten teacher and her assistant, but also for the first grade teacher + her assistant. {William spends the morning in the 1st + 2nd grade class for math + reading}
I used brown paper bags and made up custom tags for each package. In November, when I had a lot of silkscreen ribbon orders, I decided to make up some holiday ribbon for myself. You'll see that I silkscreened red twill ribbon with the words, "happy holidays from the yarrantons" I think it made the packages feel more personal. I created the tags in Adobe Illustrator, and printed them out on one of my printers. I made homemade truffles, sweet + spicy pecans + chocolate covered preztels. I bought a little can of hot coco mix from Crate + Barrel as well as some ornaments. I included some of my holiday tags + notebooks. Nothing too much, but hopefuly enough to make the teachers smile and let them know how much we appreciate all they do for our kids. :)
I stumbled upon Clemsongirl and the Coach blog a few weeks back and she happened to have a post up that day about a "Preppy Christmas Decorations Swap". How could I refuse, being a preppy at heart? Well I did not refuse, and signed my preppy ass up. Of course I had to make everything pink and green, but with a holiday twist. The pattern I created reminded me of a candy cane and I think the entire package had a nice holiday feel to it.
Since Davis and I spend the afternoons together, she helped me put together my package. We settled on a few things for Rachel Ann, my swap partner, who happens to live right here in MA. Naturally, we made a little package for Davis too :) {she is four, and everything that is yours, is also hers}
– Crochet snowflake + angel ornaments. Davis just LOVED these. Perfect decorations for Rachel Ann's tree or a packages. We "prepped" them up by adding pink + green ribbons to them. {We also bought a set for us}
– Two rolls of Custom Silkscreened Ribbon. "Happy Holidays from Rachel Ann" ribbon can decorate her packages this year. Davis picked out the ribbon at the craft store. She wanted pink ribbon, but I convinced her that green might be more festive for the holiday.
– Wine + Gift Tags: A few sets of both in pink and green should come in handy for her holiday packages.
– Mini Taylor Book: I made her a preppy green + pink book to keep track of her holiday list this year... but hopefully she'll be able to use it all year round.
– Homemade truffles + holiday MMs. You can guess who thought we should send these :) Good thing I was able to package some up before she got her hands on them. The homemade truffles came out so yummy. I'll post the recipe later this week. So easy. So good.
Overall, a really fun swap to do and a great way to get into the holiday spirit~ Thank you Clemsongirl!
I've been busy filling orders for some custom wine + gift tags. This order was for BoozeBros.com. They have an online store as well as a brick and mortar store in Las Vegas. They sent me their logo and asked me to create custom wine tags as well as square gift tags. Take a look at their site... you can order directly from there, and if you do, you'll see my tags on your bottles. Perfect for buying gifts for the upcoming busy holiday season! Everyone appreciates a nice bottle of wine :)
For many years we hosted Thanksgiving, but this year we'll be at my mum + dad's house. It's a bit nice, in that we don't have to do a lot. I'm bringing some apps + a few other things. I shopped last week so I would not be in the stores with all the crazy people. Though yesterday, in the pouring rain, I stopped by the local supermarket to pick up three things of Land O' Lake Butter. It was only $1.99. Score! {you know you are old when things like this excite you!}
Oh, today we are making some Truffles. I made some last week and boy are these yummy. I'll post the recipe {which I found on a food blog} and some photos. They are very easy to make and eat!
Hope everyone had a great weekend. I worked on three new ribbon orders. This one I actually finished last week, but I've been sick with that horrible cold/flu that has been going around... so I never made it to the post office. I recreated Samantha's logo for her. I think the ribbon came out terrific. Go check out her Etsy store. Great baby stuff.
Last night we watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Can you believe it? It's not even Thanksgiving and the holiday shows are already appearing on TV. I have to keep my eye out for the Rudolph show. Davis just loves Clarissa, Herbie the Dentist and all the other reindeers. Has anyone else been watching Christmas shows already?
Here's another custom silkscreened ribbon order I completed over the weekend. I think it came out great. Two rolls will be cut up for tags, and the other roll will be used as ribbon for packaging.
I get a lot of emails from people wondering how many "tags" one can get from a spool of ribbon. A lot depends on the size of the type. (so far, most of the type, ie..FroggieBaby™, measures over 2 inches) I usually leave .5 on each side of the type allowing enough room to cut and then sew the tags into your product.
The average amount is @75 tags per spool. I then give @ 10 more cut tags from my test strip that I do. So that's about .41 cents per tag. Now if you have a smaller type, like the one I did for Mary Ann's grandmother, where we only used her initials I counted over 150 tags from a single spool! That brings the cost to about .23 cents per tag! sweet.
The other thing people email me about is my packaging for the ribbon. If someone has a "brand" in place I try to create spool labels that match their brand. For FroggieBaby, she has a distinct brand, which helps me to create really cute labels.
Feel free to email me with additional questions. I'd be happy to answer any of them.
Thanks to everyone for their orders. I so appreciate it.
Friday was the last day of school for the kids. Part of me was so sad, as this was William's last year at this school. He will be attending Kindergarten next year at a Charter School. He really loved his teacher and learned so much. But Davis will be there again next year so we'll still see his old teacher and friends. The other part of me has been doing an insane little happy dance :) No more driving to the school three times a day! Neal use to drop the kids off at 8:30 and then I picked Davis up at 11:30 and went back to pick William up at 3:00. I swear I will gain about 2 hours a day! Plus, we'll save a butt load on gas now! Can I have a woo hoo :)
In addition to giving money to the class gifts, I decided to put together some small teacher gifts. I made handmade notecards for the teachers with the school's logo + then customized them by saying, "a note from Tracy" etc. I hope they will like them. I also gave them handmade photo albums. I gave all the assisants/helpers some other silkscreen cards I made. (no photo :( forgot to take them!) I gave one of the woman that works there a Taylor Mini Book, seeing that she did not get one for Christmas. Then I just simply wrapped them up with ribbon and a special tags thanking them all for a wonderful year.
So it's summer vacation! I'm so excited not to have a routine. I'm sure by August I'll be singing a totally different tune, but right now, I'm as happy as a clam :)
Mailed three packages out in the beginning of the week and have three more to do today. I think wrapping and packaging up stuff is one of my favorite things to do. For some reason, I get so much satisfaction from it. Silly I know :)
I can't believe tomorrow is May 1st. How fast is this year going? I feel like it was just February. Anyone else feel that way?
