Yesterday seems to have been an unusually quiet day on the internet (by which I mean I was so busy doing laundry that I was barely on my computer and hence missed whatever might have been going on :)) But seriously, I dragged Donna out for an interview and I'm not sure anyone besides Catherine, Alison and Vivian even saw it! (Ouch for Donna! :( ) The extreme quietness has caused me to doubt my new policy of posting interviews on the third Sunday of the month... Perhaps it is a bad plan. I shall have to re-examine it.... Or maybe Disqus was having issues... or maybe y'all weren't interested in the topic under discussion... Feel free to share below. In any case, if you didn't get to see Donna's interview, please go HERE. I think you might find some useful information, and if you have any questions, please post them to the comments of her interview post and we'll see what we can do about getting you answers :)
In other news, I'm pretty excited because April Fool, Phyllis! will be available in the Scholastic SeeSaw Book Club for March! It is titled The April Fool Treasure Hunt and has a blue cover instead of pink, but the story inside is the same. And for real fun, it comes on CD!!! I haven't gotten to hear it yet - I hope it's good :)
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| Since I haven't gotten my copies yet, I had to swipe this cover picture off the Scholastic site :) |
Now onto today's real business: the Oh Susanna question! This is a good one, and I will be very interested to hear what all of you have to contribute on the topic!
Saba asks, "I'm looking to have some swag made for my blog and website. Do you know of any companies that make stickers and bookmarks?"
Well, Saba, as a matter of fact I do! And I'm sure our readers have experience with many more and will hopefully share what has worked well for them!
The main sites I have used are VistaPrint, GotPrint, and Zazzle. I have made magnets, bookmarks, stickers, mugs, and pencils. (The pencils were from another site... Oriental Trading Company.) What's really great about all these sites is that you can google coupons for them and usually find a way to get a discount.
I am not artistically inclined and I have no knowledge whatsoever of how to use PhotoShopElements or Adobe Illustrator or any of those design-oriented programs. For this reason, I have found Zazzle to be the easiest site to work with for anything involving art. You can upload photos or scans straight out of your iPhoto file or wherever you keep your photos (as long as you have the rights or permission) and plop them right onto whatever you're making - magnets, stickers, t-shirts, mugs, keychains, etc. Zazzle has a lot of choices of things to make.
VistaPrint I have used for business cards and magnets. They are pretty user-friendly too.
GotPrint is what I used for bookmarks, but I had to have help. My daughter created the bookmark image I wanted on PhotoShopElements and uploaded it to GotPrint. I could not have done that myself because all I know how to do is open PhotoShop Elements - I have no idea what to do next :) This does not make for interesting bookmarks :) Bookmarks are the thing I've struggled most with. I have not found a really easy-to-work-with site that allows you to design your own without themed templates you don't want. Anyone with advice on this topic, please share!!!!!
The pencils are a little tricky because you can only go to 30 characters usually, and usually only one line of print. So you have to choose your book title or your website or your name - you can't fit them all.
I am always looking for easy-to-use sites for this kind of thing. Also for good ideas of what to make. Like I said, I personally have found Zazzle the easiest to work with, and they have a lot of product choices. I might try tote bags soon :)
Now, all you faithful and helpful readers, what kinds of swag have you made? What sites do you use? What do you recommend for Saba? Please share!
