Gmail panic, wedding napkins and wedding Post-it notes

Gmail went down for about 5 hours yesterday and sent us into a panic. We have our primary email address forwarded to gmail along with the postits gmail address, so we were stuck. I love the webmail service, the huge storage and the searching , but that was not fun. I apologize to anyone who had to wait for an answer and a proof due to the problems. I think the benefits of gmail outweigh the disadvantages, though. I love being able to log on, search and find artwork used six months ago for another project.

We just added wedding napkins to our wedding items, and they are already selling quickly. We are offering monograms and additional fonts that require a custom die so most napkin retailers don't offer that. The cost isn't much higher and I love being able to offer more choices. The monograms really make for classy (and modern, depending on the choice) wedding napkins.

Wedding Post-it notes continue to be a hot seller for our wedding items. Many, many people have never heard of using personalized Post-it notes as wedding favors, of course, but the more we are exposing to the idea, the more orders we get. I would rather get a pad of Post-its than a few Jordan almonds in a tulle bag, wouldn't you?

Just Post-It: The Approved Post-It Notes Fan Listing

You can find ANYTHING online! Even a website for fans of Post-it notes! I had to join; I bore everyone I know with ideas for how to use personalized Post-it notes.

Just Post-It: The Approved Post-It Notes Fan Listing

Search Engine Optimization and Christmas Cards

For the past three or four months I have been taking free online classes from "Cricket" to learn more about search engine optimization, css, marketing and now photography for online sistes. Her main site is here:

GNC WEB CREATIONS

Before taking her classes, for half of my keywords for custom Post-it notes and personalized Post-it notes keywords I was in the top five, but for the other half I was in the hundreds. Google burped and I went down in all of them, but since the last adjustment I have been in the top 3 for the first batch and up to 30-40 for the other half. Not great, but a vast improvement. And I have used what I have learned to market some of my wedding items as well; my monogram cake toppers and fan wedding programs are top 3 in Froogle. So if you have any kind of online business or a website you want to draw people into, check her out. She is amazing.

Finally, we are getting our Christmas cards up on the cceasy shopping cart. There are some of the really cool "Something Different" ones up as well. I have chosen the Thanksgiving-type ones, a Courage Card style, I will send for business (I ordered 1400 this year! compared to last year when I sent 500!), but I haven't decided on our personal ones yet. More are going up almost every day.

Back from vacation!

Well I survived being away from my home office for 3 weeks! The kids and I went out to visit family for three weeks and I was working from my cell phone and my brother's computer. I had to save a few projects for when I got back, as I had artwork on my home computer, but otherwise I was able to manage pretty well. The experience did convince me that I need to go more paperless with my recordkeeping and I am working out just how to do that now, at least for most customers. Using gmail to access all of my email accounts and then the online shopping cart access allowed me to process orders. I emailed myself a copy of my Excel invoice program so I could use that as well. I did miss my Photoshop and had to make do with Steve's Paint Shop Pro, which is probably a fine program but I am not familiar with it. It has been 2 18 hour days since we got back getting caught up. I apologize to everyone who had to wait for a return email or phone call during the 3 day drive back!

What is hot this summer, besides wedding program fans, is "handwritten" custom Post-it notes. I am getting an order a day for just this type. Nonprofits and real estate companies seem to be the biggest user of them. When I get a scanned version of actual handwriting and print it in blue on canary yellow Post-it notes, it looks so real you can't tell the difference except that the custom Post-it notes won't smear!

Family reunion Post-it notes

One of my favorite things about this job is seeing the ideas customers come up with for personalized Post-it notes. I am so fortunate in being able to offer an almost limitless number of options with motifs and then the hundreds of fonts, besides the standard paper and ink colors. Thank you, Carlson Craft!! Lately I have been getting a rush of family reunion Post-it note orders, and people have chosen motifs ranging from a tree to the US capitol (for a Washington, DC reunion). One lovely couple in CO chose a cabin in the mountains as the motif for their anniversary party/reunion favors.

This business is just exploding on several fronts, and it is very exciting to be in the midst of. However, I am getting a little nervous about how I will manage being out of my home office for 3 weeks during our family vacation. I should be able to do everything except paperwork on borrowed computers, but we'll see how that goes. I wont' be able to do all of the artwork manipulation I do now for a few weeks, and that may be a challenge. But we are looking forward to vacation time, especially the kids!

Cool designs for Personalized Post-it notes

For those of you a bit hipper than I am and wanting some very modern personalized Post-it notes, first check out some of our Just For Fun Post-it Note motifs.

If none of those does it for you, check out Lysa Goodman Poore's designs. We actually print the personalized Post-it notes for her; she is a very talenting up and coming graphic artist with a line of personalized Post-it notes (and other stationery) on her site, InkwellCollection.com.

You won't find cooler personalized Post-it notes anywhere!

Are you so cool you have an idea for a personalized Post-it note that nobody has thought of before? Let us know and we can print it for you on our Design Your Own Personalized Post-it Notes!

Selling on Ebay

I put up the Ebay store mainly for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes, to get some good links back to a few pages on the site and show up in more Froogle and other shopping engine listings. I didn't think I would sell many custom Post-it notes, as I had noted several other companies trying to sell them on Ebay in the past without any luck. But I am actually making sales, especially of the value pack/ensemble personalized Post-it notes. I guess Ebayers like a good deal! I have a selection of preformatted personalized Post-it notes listed in the store and then have a few things on auction starting below my standard price, so check it out. I have noticed my ebay listings coming up on Google, so hopefully I'm getting the SEO benefits as well.

Lots of new Post-it note Designs!

My press, Carlson Craft, has come out with new custom Post-it note pricing, so some of our prices have changed. I've tried hard to keep them down, and am discounting my smaller quantities even more than 15% to keep them affordable. That's the bad news. The good news is that they have a LOT more designs in the preformatted personalized Post-it notes and in the personalized Post-its value packs. These are bargains and the new designs are very cool. I am waiting on samples to get better images of some of them up; the brochure they printed does not have great pictures in it, but I scanned and put them up the best I can.




The best news is that I can still use custom graphics at personalized Post-it note pricing in my Design Your Own category, within the same limitations as before in terms of complexity, size and formatting. So the options for my customers have really increased, with only a small price increase.

One puzzling thing to me is that the new brochure does not contain pricing for large quantity custom Post-it notes in the odd sizes, like 2-3/4 x 3, 6x8, etc. So every time I get a request for those I have to get a quote from them. Wouldn't it be easier for them to just print it up one time? Oh well. Those prices have not gone up much anyway.

We have an Ebay Store!

Last night we created an Ebay Store for Antonia Rose Printing! We did it in part to catch the attention of the inveterate Ebay shoppers who seldom search for items outside of Ebay, in part to assist with our search engine optimization campaign (by creating more relevant links) and in part as an easy way to have specials, sell discontinued items, etc. So go check it out! We will generally have at least one item up for auction at less than retail price (right now 10 pads of formatted personalized Post-it notes) and eventually several specials each month listed as Buy it Now.

There are a few of our most popular wedding items listed as well. The wedding items are more of a sideline for us, but we do offer the full range of printed wedding items and accessories from Carlson Craft, all at a discount. We offer some things not generally available online and rarely if ever discounted, like our wedding program fans. So if you or anyone you know is getting married, you might want to check out our prices and service--they are excellent on these items as well. Though honestly it is easier to deal with custom Post-it note customers than with brides...

Interview at Free from 9 to 5

Check out Eric's interview with me over at Free from 9 to 5. He found Antonia Rose Printing online when looking for custom Post-its and his interest in my company was piqued by a family picture on my contact page. I am certainly glad that I am free from 9 to 5 work, and I hope I always will be!

I am already getting some sales of my Breast Cancer Support Post-it notes, mostly not personalized, though they can be personalized with a line or two at the top at no extra charge. My sister-in-law's Stage IV breast cancer is not looking good at all; we were over there at Easter and she feels fine, but all the test results are very discouraging. I'm donating $4 from each set of 10 sold to the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation.

Finally, I don't know much about this company, Quiksilver, out of CA, but any company that first gets its employees personalized Post-it notes for Christmas and then gets a whole bunch of the below design as a promotion for the Quiksilver Boardrider's Club, must be a cool place to work, huh?

Wedding favor Post-it notes

Should I be mad or flattered or both? My press, Carlson Craft, has been so impressed with the number of personalized wedding favor Post-it notes I sell, and the variety offered on my website, that they are coming out with a new brochure next week to help other Carlson Craft dealers market Post-it notes as wedding favors. I haven't seen it yet, but it is my understanding that they are very basic designs with just names and dates on them. Until now they had not done a very good job marketing their personalized Post-it notes as favors or as much at all on the "social printing" end of the business. For the last four months or so they offered some plain white with black print and a verse personalized Post-it notes in their wedding album, but almost nobody orders those when they see the other options available on my site. These are the only wedding Post-it notes you can find on Google, besides mine.

Their printed Post-it note marketing person called me six months ago to chat about my custom Post-its site and say how impressed she was with my marketing and all the ideas for using printed Post-it notes I had. Now I know what she's done with it...

Whatever ideas they give other dealers, nobody will be able to match our design options, selection, and most of all our service and our ability to use custom graphics at "standard format" Post-it note pricing. So I guess I shouldn't worry too much...for now."

press releases and uses for handwritten Post-it notes

http://www.theopenpress.com/index.php has a few of our press releases, as does http://prweb.com. Interesting to see if anything comes of it.

Customer uses for Post-its constantly amaze and amuse me. I just had an inquiry from a sorority girl wanting to get some with an elephant on them for her roommate. Hmmm, not sure I would want to live with her...


The handwritten Post-it notes are really taking off, in both blue and red ink. It is amazing how realistically handwritten they look. There was an ad campaign in Sweden of all places that used actual handwritten Post-it notes placed on public phones and mailboxes all over to advertise scuba lessons; they should have had us print their handwriting on Post-its and saved a lot of time! Most of the handwritten ones we sell are either for real estate people wanting to get potential customer's attention or for advertising/fundraising campaigns.

Fun Post-it Note Designs, etc.

At the urging of my brother and husband, I am working on a page of "Fun Post-it Note Designs" aimed toward the younger, hipper set.


Seeing as I am at the advanced age of 40 and besides being the queen of Custom Post-it Notes and a Domestic Goddess, as far from hip as it gets, this is a bit of a challenge. Any ideas are welcome--email me!

In response to my press releases about my Post-it note business, I got an email from the Washington County (MN) bulletin asking for a picture. Even if I don't get any sales as a result of an article, my niece and nephew will think I'm famous. (Of course, if you are on TV in a panned crowd scene at a game, they think you are famous...) That press release angle was Park High grad in work at home business, from work at home family (mentioned mom and brother's businesses.

Personalized Post-it Notes for Father's Day

Hey! I'm working on a really good press release, with a Mompack member who is a freelance writer, Jeanne Yacoubou, in return for a swap of personalized Post-it notes. The focus is personalized Post-it notes for Father's Day gifts, as many lifestyle sections and magazines work 3-4 months ahead.

I haven't done press releases before this month. I just sent some off to three local papers here in NJ and one to my hometown paper in MN--we'll see what happens. It certainly is cheap--like, free!--and there are some newsworthy twists--work at home mom from a work at home family, the Carlson Craft Distinguished Dealer award I just got, etc.

for Father's Day, think about it--do you know a man who would not use personalized Post-it notes? Face it, if he cares about ties, he would rather buy them himself. If he doesn't care, he doesn't care. Give him something he uses every day (if he works in an office), can use to promote his business or thank his customers (if he is self-employed), can use to make lists or record golf scores (every man has a hobby, sports interest or some such...), even to make grocery lists if he is so inclined! He will think of you every time he sees a Post-it note. Plus, they are cheaper than a nice tie and way cheaper than a new drill! (Starting at $15.73 plus shipping for 10 50-sheet pads...)

I even put up a page just for Father's Day gifts--check it out!

Custom Postits R Us!

Well, I have a personal blog to keep relatives updated, but I thought I would start a work-related blog, to communicate with friends about my adventures as a business owner/webmistress/graphic artist/etc.

In 10/03, I decided to start an online printing retailing business, www.AntoniaRosePrinting.com. I thought I would sell mainly wedding invitations, as I got into it through the encouragement of my friend, Theresa Scott, who runs www.LittleBridalShop.com. I had never created a website or anything online before, never used a graphics program, and never run a retail business. It has been quite an adventure!

To complement the wedding sales area, I created www.IDoinMN.com with Theresa's help, learning Front Page as I went. That is an online wedding planning advice site, not a sales site. We wrote a book's worth of content to help brides plan their wedding. Then we decided to put the info into a PDF they could download, and eventually we printed it and sell it in a comb-bound form for $10 (which just covers our printing costs.)

I got a Carlson Craft (my press) cookie-cutter site with their most popular products on it, also known as a cceasy site. That is www.antoniaroseprinting.cceasy.com. I can control the text on the main category pages and the home page, and I can control the discount I offer, but that is about all I can control about that site. I found it limiting, especially as I started getting more and more personalized Post-it note orders.

I decided to create my own site to piggyback on that site, hence www.AntoniaRosePrinting.com. Initially I just used it to lead people into the cceasy site, but then I started to follow my customers' lead and focus on what they were ordering, namely Post-it notes! I found Carlson Craft is one of the nation's largest printers of Post-it notes and that they offered a lot more than was on the cceasy site. So I expanded my offering, initially using Front Page to build my site.

After about 4 months, I got frustrated by the limitations of Front Page and decided to invest in Dreamweaver. My brother Steve Wilmes, a big-time web developer (www.swconsulting.com) said that was really the way to go and he assured me I could learn it.

So I rebuilt my printing site with Dreamweaver, using a template I bought from PixelMill.com. Of course, I messed it up so the pages are not tied to the template; when I change one thing on the navigation or something, I have to change all the 150 plus pages! Live and learn!

Now I offer all the Post-it note products Carlson Craft offers. I have a big line of wedding favor Post-it notes plus gift ideas, aside from the more common business uses. Plus I've expanded into personal stationery for adults and kids, again following customer interest. I've become quite competent at Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well. I do basic layouts and file conversions for my customers for free, something very few printers will do.

My first sale was around 12/03, so we've been actually in business just over a year. We are top 5 on Google for half of our key words, and working on the other ones. (We went from 500s to 30-40 on those, but now are back down to 100--the mysteries of the algorithms!) We tried pay per click advertising and it got us business, but the cost for Google was too high. We still do a bit of it with Overture, but mostly rely on our Google placement, external links and offline advertising to pull buyers in.






I started working with the Mompack.com people in the last 4 months, exchanging advertising material that we pass on to customers. That has spread my name around at a low cost. My latest adventure is creating and releasing some press releases. My first 4 went out today; we'll see what happens!

Stay tuned for more adventures in online business!