And the Award Goes to.....Hopefully Us!!!

The Greeting Card Association has annouced the finalists for the best greeting card and stationery products of the past year. Out of the thousands of cards and invitations published each year, 168 made it to the final round of the 22nd Annual International Greeting Card Awards competition, better known as the "LOUIEs". Paper House has four - count 'em - FOUR nominations:

Row of Butterflies Blank Card

Peace Sign - Wreath Christmas Greeted Card

Easter Egg Chicks Greeted Card

Chicken Soup Get Well Card

The awards are named after German lithographer Louis Prang, who is credited with the birth of the U.S. card industry in the 1870's.

Winners will be revealed during this year's LOUIE celebration on Monday, May 17th, 2010 in New York City. (Basically the Oscars for the card industry, without the gowns!) This coincides with the National Stationery show being held May 16th - May 19th at the Jacob Javits Center also in New York City.

Paper House has won several LOUIE Awards, most recently in 2007 for our insanely cute Row of Bunnies Card!

So cross your fingers and toes for us! And make sure to keep coming back to check out more exciting news, projects and annoucements.

We're Baaack!!!!

Winter is over! Paper House's Blog has been in hibernation, just like bears and other cute and furry animals.


Now we are back and will be updating our blog regularly for all of our Paper House devotees with product ideas, news, new product intros and anything else we can think of!

Since the Easter Bunny will be making his rounds soon, we would like to revisit a great project idea from last year by one of our creative crafters in the field, Sue Higgins of Indiana. Sue created this adorable (and functional) Easter decoration by covering a Cardboard Egg in our Easter paper and added grass and mini cut-outs to make a one of a kind Easter Basket. Most importantly, there is plenty of room in there for candy - Sue made sure of that! You can follow along with the instructions below to make this cute project.





Supplies:

P-0398E Easter Bunny Paper
DCM-0422 Duckling Mini Cut-Out
DCM-0421 Bunny Mini Cut-Out


Cardboard Egg
Popsicle Sticks
Modge Podge

Instructions:

1. Trace cardboard shape (front, sides, and top) onto the Easter Bunny Paper. Trim out and adhere to cardboard shape.
2. Generously apply one coat of Modge Podge to seal. Allow to dry.
3. Glue the Bunny & Duckling Mini Cut-Outs to popsicle sticks.
4. Fill as desired (you could include Easter grass, eggs, candy, etc.), nesting the Mini Cut-Out sticks among the Easter Basket fill.

Thanks again Sue for this original way of using Paper House's scrapbook products. We hope to see more "crafty" ideas from you!

Speaking of our creative crafters in the field, we would like to put a shout out to everyone who loves to scrap and craft to show us your layouts and fun projects you've made with Paper House's Products. If we use your project on the blog, you'll get FREE STUFF - yes that's right - FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Click on this link for instructions on how to enter your ideas.

We know there are tons of talented people out there so why not show the world your fabulousness? Oh and of course - FREE STUFF IS GOOD!!!

So stay tuned for more exciting news from "The House". It's great to be back and we hope to hear from a lot of our fans. Remember to check out all of Paper House's products go to http://www.paperhouseproductions.com/. If you need help in finding a retailer who carries Paper House, email us at info@paperhouseproductions.com and we will be happy to find a store close to you.

Website Reorganization

So, since CHA we've been busy reorganizing our website. Everything is now much easier to find! We've overhauled the Themes section so that every little thing is in the perfect place, from family & fun to feminine floral! If you've never explored our scrapbooking side by theme, this is the perfect time to do it. Here you'll find all of your favorite Paper House products categorized exactly and intuitively. 

Take a minute to check it out and see which Paper House Themes you haven't yet explored! Our extensive Travel section is neatly alphabetized and we've combined all of your favorite family activities into a Family & Fun section. Also new is the Celebrations category (which covers milestones like baby, birthday, and graduation) and the Outdoor Life category, that combines all of our products related to outdoor activities!

We truly hope this reorganization has made navigating our website easier and more intuitive! Please feel free to give us any feedback, and enjoy!

CHA Summer - New Papers!

Look at the new toy we just found: Slide lets us put all of our images in one nifty slideshow for you to view, right here on the Paper House Blog. So, check out all of our newest papers, just introduced at CHA Summer and available to order today!

Summer CHA

Hi All! We're home from Summer CHA and getting back into the swing of things! We had a great show and loved seeing all of our retailers and friends there. Yes, it was *HOT* (no air-conditioning during set-up!?) but of course, it was well worth it. We introduced some great new Papers, Cardstock Stickers, and Glitter Rub-Ons, so check out our web site to see them all! Or just stay posted for some detailed blog posts highlighting the great new collections we came out with this summer.

Following tradition, we constructed our tradeshow booth entirely from reusable and recyclable materials. If you've ever seen our "Green Booth" in person, it's hard to believe it's completely made out of earth-friendly cardboard and reusable fixtures! Check out the pictures below to see for yourself!

We were also super-excited to premier our Card & Gift Programs to our scrapbooking & paper crafting customers. Paper House started out over 25 years ago as a greeting card company, and today we make an such enormous selection of cards, gifts, and scrapbooking products!

Hope you are all enjoying a great summer, and getting everything ready for the upcoming back-to-school season. We've got some great specials going on this month to kick off the back-to-school season, so retailers: contact our great customer service team to find out how you can stock up and save!

Fishing Fun

Summer is the perfect time for Fishing Fun, and you'll have everything you need to scrapbook your family memories with Paper House's ever-popular Fishing Collection! Complete with 12 x 12" Papers, Cardstock Stickers, and Mini Cut-Outs, it'll be hard to let a single moment be the "one that got away!"

In the full page layout above, we mounted two of our favorite summer photos onto moss green cardstock before arranging them onto the Gone Fishin' Collage Paper (P-0403E). The title from the Gone Fishin' Cardstock Sticker, along with fish & sign stickers, gave us the perfect accents for this page, while the fishing pole border from the Cardstock fit great along the side of the page. We topped it all off with a few Mini Cut-Outs from the Collection for a quick and easy project that will help us remember this family fun forever!

Since it's introduction at CHA Winter 2009, Paper House's Fishing Collection has been one of our top selling scrapbooking collections, and is a perfect theme to keep in your store this summer! To see all of our complete collections, just check out our website today!

National Stationery Show • 2009

We just wrapped up National Stationery Show in New York City and wow, was it great!! Along with meeting a lot of fantastic customers and spending time with our reps, we were glad to be there to showcase our new products and display programs.

As you may have seen, this year our big focus was to increase our Green Initiative by creating a booth that was constructed entirely of reusable and recyclable materials... and that's just what we did! All of the fixtures and the features in our booth were created with cardboard boxes and panels, put together with precision and care. Although we've been creating environmentally friendly booths at the CHA (Craft & Hobby Association) Trade Shows over the past two years, this was our first entirely Green Exhibit at the National Stationery Show.

If you're wondering how we came up with the idea and plans to make a booth from cardboard, it all starts with a small scale model on Art Director Tim Murray's desk. The model is discussed, reviewed and finalized before plans get underway for the real thing.

It's amazing to see how much the model ends up looking like the real booth! Check out the photos below to see what we mean!

Peggable fixtures were created by drilling holes in the cardboard panels and inserting display pegs. We were able to hang a great selection of magnets and stickers this way!

We created slat-wall fixtures on the inner walls of the booth by making cardboard slats for the display trays to sit in. Our "great wall of cards" makes such a dramatic impact and shows how visually impactful it is to see all of our cards merchandised together!

To see the progression of the booth from cardboard boxes and panels to the finished Green Design, just watch the video below!