The Personal Touch: Flutterbye Note Cards and Stickers

When Amie Jones gave up graphic design to stay home with her kids in 2009, she loved spending time with them, but missed creating and designing. A new direction presented itself when Amie sent her mother, a teacher, a set of note cards as a gift. Other teachers asked about them, and when Amie looked around at the types of note cards available for teachers, she knew she had something to add.

Thus was Flutterbye Notes born. This line of personalized stationary gives primary school teachers a uniquely personalized way of corresponding with both students and parents--and students and parents a great, truly useful gift for teacher. 

Over the past two years, Jones has expanded her focus beyond the market for teachers, but has kept the focus on cards with that extra personal touch--as in her ThumbKins line, which incorporates the customer's actual finger print in the design. Her vision for Flutterbye is to bring people stationery that they feel is truly unique and represents who they are, encouraging recipients to reach out and appreciate others, too.

Amie uses custom stickers on all of her product packaging, noting that she doesn't invest in a lot of custom-made packaging, but is still able to brand everything associated with Flutterbye with her logo sticker. Stickers are also an aspect of her actual product, as they give her customers yet another way to personalize their cards, and to use their own creativity. 

Why Custom Sticker Makers? "CSM has been great to work with," Amie told us. "For me, the ability to print in small quantities for a great price is my biggest incentive. I am a small business and also like to reinvent my designs on a whim, so the small runs are really great for me."  

Street Stickers Sell It: the New York State of Mind

In 2008, Brett Stein discovered an important fact: thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution, it's legal to sell T-shirts in the streets and parks of New York City as long as they make a political/religious statement. Stein put that knowledge together with his political views, love of street art/graffiti, skateboarding and hip-hop, and came up with New York State of Mind (NYSM)--a clever, eye-catching collection of t-shirts sold on the streets of Soho and in NYC's Union Square Park.

Since then, thousands of NYSM shirts have been sold to people from all over the world--proving, in the immortal words of Mos Def, "it's not where you're from, it's where you're at!"--but to this day, every shirt is silk screened by hand in Stein's Brooklyn studio with mad love.

Despite all the success, NYSM is still an independent business with virtually no budget for marketing/advertising, so beyond  word-of-mouth and some basic social networking, Stein's entire marketing plan has consisted of custom sticker "stick ups" on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. As a consequence, he told us, it seems like almost everyone he meets in NYC is familiar with his brand/logo.

Why did Brett Stein choose Custom Sticker Makers to print those all-important NYSM stickers? "I choose to deal with CSM because I know they value me as a customer and go the extra mile to keep me happy," he told us.

Machine Gun Moustache: A Great Sound Deserves a Great Sticker

When multi-instrumentalists Immanual (a.k.a. "The Liberator") and Will Hatch get together, good things happen. Musical traditions are explored, updated and sometimes even exploded, as in the case of their new band, Machine Gun Moustache, which re-imagines old blues and Americana with experimental twists, such as tribal rhythms and homemade electric instruments. 

While the band is barely a year old, all told, 2010 was a good year for Machine Gun Moustache. They finished up their second self-produced/recorded album, Fish for Dinner, and embarked on their first real tour, heading up from Washington D.C. through New England all the way to Burlington, Vermont. "To be honest," Immanuel told us, "we were a bit surprised by how excited people seemed to be at our shows." He goes on to note how grateful he and Will are for the generosity of fans and friends on the road (especially to those who let the band crash on their couches).

As a new band, Machine Gun Moustache relies heavily on word-of-mouth support and fan endorsements to get the word out, and their stickers are a big part of that. The band's intriguing photo-sticker now adorns walls, poles, doors, and bathroom stalls from D.C. to Maine--which prompts the curious to perhaps visit the website, maybe download some music (by donation), and hopefully come see a show. 

Why did Machine Gun Moustache go with Custom Sticker Makers (CSM) on sticker printing? "That’s pretty simple," Immanuel told us. "Full-color and price.  Even though our sticker only has four or five colors, it would have cost us way more money to do the job at any of the other places I looked at. If I had gone with another printer, I  would have had to do the time-consuming Photoshop work of separating color vectors and such. With CSM, I just sent in a high-res JPEG and they sent the stickers back looking perfect." He goes on to note that at CSM's prices, the band can afford to give their stickers away. 

Midgemere Part One

MachineGunMustache | Myspace Music Videos

Sticking with the Workout: Words to Sweat by

When Dana founded a company called Whimsical Walney way back in 2004, her vision was to create unique children's products. Unfortunately, unintended consequences of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 put the testing required to continue selling these products out of range for her start-up. But rather than give up and throw in the towel, so to speak, Dana noticed one day at the gym how many of her fellow fitness enthusiasts draped their towels over their workout equipment. Why not create a towel with a little attitude and inspiration?

Thus was was Words to Sweat by born--a line of towels designed to help people take their workouts seriously, but not themselves--appliqued with sayings like "Carpe Dumbell" and "C is for crunches, not cookies" and the ever-popular, "10 more reps and the cupcake is history." The brand launched in November 2009 with about 15 gym towels; in 2010, reusable snack bags and key chains were added to the line and in January of this year, Dana launched the World-Class Words collection of towels, which sponsors four athletes going for gold in the next Olympics. These towels feature each athlete’s own personal mantra, and sales help to support that athelete's training.

Dana likes the way her custom stickers can wind up anywhere from a water-bottle to a laptop computer. She includes one in every order as a little surprise, and often hands them out to prospective customers. She notes that stickers are both cost-effective and easy to store, and once they're placed on an object, they're usually there for good--which means she never knows who might learn about her brand just by asking about the sticker after seeing it.

Why did she choose Custom Sticker Makers? "I originally choose Custom Sticker Makers because you offered the best pricing," she told us. "I also liked that it was so easy to understand your pricing and get a quote. Then I had a little hiccup with one of my graphics and the CSM team made sure that they had the right graphic in-hand so that I got the best sticker possible. So, the pricing was the initial draw, but the service is what made (and makes) me a repeat customer."

Stuff We Like: Nuanced Bumper Stickers

Not the type to rock a bumper sticker? Perhaps your views are simply too nuanced--or ambivalent--for the type of stickers you've seen tooling around town.

Zazzle understands that not everyone identifies with the type of sentiments that commonly characterize the nation's bumpers. Their solution is a special section called Nuanced, Ambivalent, or Guarded, which features sentiments such as...

..."I fervently hope the local squadron defeats the out-of-town squadron in the upcoming sporting contest"...

..."I attended or am otherwise affiliated with a creditable university, to which I give my continued allegiance"...

and the classic, "I support one of the leading political candidates, but that's about all I'd like to say about the matter for now."

Fair enough!

Annals of Sticktivism: You Are Beautiful

It's a simple message one group of artists sees as an antidote to the constant barrage of consumer culture: You Are Beautiful.


A simple, powerful statement they've worked into a number of installations--from street art to gallery exhibitions in Italy, New York, Chicago and Portland, to name a few. And their favorite collaborator, as it turns out, is you. 


'You Are Beautiful' stickers are available for free (or by donation) on their website, and have been posted by admirers of this positive statement all over the world. 

From the You Are Beautiful artists' statement:
The intention behind this project is to reach beyond ourselves as individuals to make a difference by creating moments of positive self realization. We're just attempting to make the world a little better. 

The essence, we believe, of Sticktivism. 

Stickers That Keep it Straight: The Eyebox Organizer

With a number of different pairs of contact lenses, Sharena Walker had a hard time keeping them all straight. That's because contact lenses--whether prescription or decorative (colored)--typically come in vials printed with all their pertinent information, and when those lenses get transferred to a case, all that information gets thrown out.

What to do? Keep all those empty vials cluttering the medicine cabinet? Open every case and try to figure out which pair is which? Sharena had a better idea: a compact jewel-case organizer which would not only keep all those lens cases neatly organized but which would identify them, via a simple system of (what else?) stickers. 

Her innovative invention--the first offering of her new business, Lovely Ideas--is the Eyebox. To use, you simply place a colored sticker on the bottom of a contact lens case and a sticker of the same color next to a line on the Record Keeper, a card that fits neatly in the bottom of the box. Record the info specific to those lenses--brand, color, purchase information, date, cost, expiration information, sphere, base curve, and diameter--and voila! No more wondering, and no more fumbling. 

In creating the Eyebox, Sharena ordered sticker samples from three other companies. Custom Sticker Makers won because of the quality/price ratio. "These little round stickers needed to adhere to the type of plastic used for most contact lens cases," Sharena told us. "They had to be durable, very sticky, and water resistant. CSM stickers fared above the others and won my business."

Stuff We Like: Stickers for the Holidays, Part 1

When you think of stickers as Christmas presents, chances are, you're thinking of stocking stuffers. But this holiday season, we ask that you think a little bigger in terms of what stickers can do for the kids in your life--a lot  bigger.

From Yoda with a light saber to Tinkerbell, space-rockets, dump-trucks and fairy-tale castles, there's not much in the way of childhood obsessions that are not available as a mural-sized repositionable wall-sticker, it seems, as far as Wall Sticker Outlet goes. We're especially fond of this t-rex busting through the wall, though we're not sure it's suitable for kids who wake up at night scared of the boogie man.

Wall Sticker Outlet offers everything from single character stick-ons to full-scene murals, available in Girls Themes and Boys Themes, as well as more mural-oriented wall-stickers aimed at adults. There are also stick-on chalkboard options.

These wall-stickers will run you anywhere between $17 for a single character to $325 for a giant wall mural, just in time for the holidays.

Taking It to the Streets: One Street Helps Bike Groups Help Others

One Street is a nonprofit organization based right here in Custom Sticker Makers' hometown of Prescott, Arizona, but their mission is global in scope--to lift bicycling to the forefront of society around the world by helping bike organizations help others. 

One Street was founded in September 2007 by Sue Knaup, a long-time bicycle advocate at the local, national and international levels. The name came from an idea she had at the age of six on a family trip when she realized that one street connects to other streets and, if the world is round, never ends.

Since then, with the help of advisors ranging from leaders of large and small non-profits and government agencies to corporate CEOs, One Street has helped a women's center offer bike repair job training skills in Uganda, sponsored the manufacture of bikes internationally in disadvantaged areas (with funding from the bike-friendly Ft. Collins-based New Belgium Brewing Company), created a Bed and Bike website listing bike-friendly overnight accommodations in North America, and much, much more.

The One Street logo combines an image of the world with a peace sign and the letters O and S in a kind of continuous street, and stickers bearing this logo have become an important way for the organization to promote the essence of its mission in what Sue describes as "a really cool and simple form." She reports that she's seen them on the bikes, brief cases and backpacks of strangers passing her in different parts of the world.

Why Custom Sticker Makers? The answer is simple enough. "I like you guys," said Sue. "You do great work and you’re right here in town."

Laptop Stickers Pimp Your MacBook (Logo)

We all know Mac enthusiasts are a little different. Now there's a way for them to show the world (and each other) just how different they are, by pimping their Macbooks with laptop stickers from StickWithMeBaby.

StickWithMeBaby is a collection of laptop stickers designed to personalize the apple logo on your MacBook with into something resembling a cartoon head. Each of these heads have plenty of attitude, and come in three distinct categories: Bros, Hos, and Mos.

(While women everywhere will certainly take issue with the title of the second category, there's no denying, it's got a certain ring to it. There's also no denying that these stickers are hilarious.)

The Creepy Uncle

The Horny Librarian

The Stick With Me Baby line of laptop stickers for the Mac is the brainchild of Herraizsoto&Co, an independent creative agency based in Barcelona that's done work for folks like IKEA and BMW.  Stickers are interchangeable, low-tac, and will run you around $10 a piece (8 Euro).