Waiting for the Dust to Settle

We recently had the opportunity to double our shop by taking over an adjacent space in our building. We have the same trepidation as everyone else in this economy... scale back, do more with less, ride it out... But in the end, we decided to do it. The elbow room and additional storage space will be a huge bonus right now, and the extra space will give us the opportunity to start 'playing' with a few new concepts that have been on the back burner. The walls are coming down and we're scrambling to work in a construction zone.

2010 was a banner year for us. We grew from 8 to 14 employees, had sales in over 66 countries, and got to meet some great designers who are using our designs in a myriad of fun and exciting projects. We brought in a full time CSR to free up our design staff who work with customers on custom quotes and on new and fun designs with more of an artistic bent. We've grown this year to just over 17,000 fans on Facebook, which we frequently poll for design ideas and to pick a winner from a couple of competing designs. We love the medium and will continue our 'conversation' with our customers as long as they'll continue to give us feedback, opinions, and ideas.

Thanks to everyone that made 2010 a great year. Here's to 2011 and new goals and products. Onward and upward!

Cheers!

Morgan

Trading Phrases

PS. Check out our current Valentine promotion design for a little romantic whimsy!

Waiting For a Website

Did you hear? We put our giant decals on sale--Save 20% through the end of November. Want even more fun discounts, find them on our Facebook page, but you have to become a fan to see the codes. Sneaky, aren't we?

Have you ever seen the commercial where someone talks about hiring someone to create a new website for them "5 months ago"... Well I definitely feel their pain. The new website project has been in the works for over a year. We are getting close, just at the time of the year that we said we would not be converting websites. I've never been good at timing, so add this to my less than stellar track record!

In the meantime, we're still working on making our current site a bit more user friendly. We've added a realtime chat feature, have extended our Customer Service Hours (now 10a-5p M-F) and added social plugins to all designs. Stop by for a chat when you are on our site!

We lost one of our favorite competitors recently. We will miss you, Wonderful Graffiti. You were a class act that exuded professionalism, and were head and shoulders above the fray with unique graphic designs that were beautiful and inspired. We hope you all are on to bigger and better things and will be back with a redesigned concept soon!

New Designs for Halloween

Time flies when you’re having fun, or in our case when you’re swamped. The kids haven’t even had a chance to break in their new backpacks, while Target is now displaying Halloween décor. We run on a perpetual seasonal and holiday clock, and ours is not pointing to fall and trending to winter.

We put together some fun designs for Halloween this year, including some fun packs with a bunch of whimsical art that can help with the overall effect. Consider adding decals to the realistic foam pumpkins for a display that can last for years. Add a touch of macabre to a mirror with a spider web, or invite a friendly ghost to take up residence for a spell. It is a great time of year to finally experiment with that funky shade of orange you’ve been threatening to try for the past 6 months!

Supersize Me!

We finally got in the giant rolls of 48” material and are excited to be creating huge designs to go with the media. We’re also doing Henry Ford one better right now—you can have it in any color you want as long as it is black or chocolate! We’ll get more colors in over time, but for now we’re focusing on trees.

I hail from the Oregon coast, which has some of the most beautiful forests on earth. I love trees, and I love the way they look on the walls. We’re starting with adorable and fun trees, and will add the more forest-y looking trees along with other designs over time.

We’re still getting in more and more colors in the 30” material size as we change over from the 24” format. If you find a design that needs to be bigger, shoot us an email and we’ll see if we can work it in. We can order the 48” vinyl in any of our colors as well, so if you find you absolutely have to have something that big, we have you covered.

My personal favorite design today has to be the windy tree, because I love the effect of the curling leaves ‘blowing’ across a wall. Which one do you like best? We’d love to hear from you!

Morgan

Reclaim Your Space

I look forward to the day that I can call myself an empty nester. I dream of coming home and finding the house the same as I left it, I snicker over having to load a dishwasher occasionally. I also dream of what I can do to convert those coveted bedrooms to more functional space. Now, granted, my empty nest days are a long way off, but I can dream. If you have a bedroom that you have been eyeing as your hobby room, exercise room, library, media room, or home office, we have several designs that can help you proclaim your space.

• Book designs for a library
• Motivation or business quotes for a home office
• Movie quotes for a theater room
• Sewing, scrapbooking, quilting, or other hobby designs
• Motivation and exercise quotes for an exercise room
• Welcoming messages for a guest room

If you can dream it, we can come up with a design for it

Grad Motivation

Ah, grad season is upon us. Soon the studious will be fresh from school and will spend their days ‘recovering’ from their ordeal. We’ve got a few great designs that are perfect little motivation reminders. If you’ve ever felt you might as well be talking to the wall, then let those walls do the nagging for a while. Don’t see any that work, then we’ve got designers at the ready to help you create a custom design that will be absolutely perfect—just think of the possibilities!

Designers, Bloggers, and Room to Breathe

Debbie Travis, one of my favorite designers and television personalities recently reached out to us for some information and photos for an upcoming newspaper column. We’re tickled pink (or rather tickled carnation, bubble gum, or…). We can’t wait to see what Debbie says—especially since her forte is paint, plaster, and the covering of bland walls.

Debbie is not the only one talking about us, we’ve been on a whirlwind with bloggers recently, getting together give aways, sending out samples, and generally getting to know some of the social media press circuit. I definitely missed the social marketing chapter in my moldy oldy Marketing 301 class in college, but I’m learning as I go.

Our big news (at least to us) is that we moved our production facility this week and are really enjoying the elbow room. The blank walls are both refreshing and intimidating—the old space we put up any random thing that we had lying around. In this space I want it a little more thought out. For now it’s a little minimalist until I get a spark of creativity and a few minutes with my favorite cutting machines.