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January 26, 2012

Greeting Card Messages That Impress

Filed under: Designing Your Invitation — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

Birthday Hats Custom Greeting CardsIn this age of everything electronic, the act of sending greeting cards via regular mail has fallen by the wayside. It seems that now everything from party invitations to thank you cards are sent via email, or even worse, text message. But most people will tell you that they really enjoy receiving greeting cards via “snail mail.” PaperDirect has a full line of greeting cards for all occasions, and you can make your greeting card even more impressive by including a heartfelt greeting card message that the recipient will truly appreciate.

Whether you are sending a birthday greeting, anniversary, sympathy, congratulatory or thank you card, hand-written greeting card messages will add a special touch that will let the card recipient know you truly care. PaperDirect has greeting cards for these special occasions (just to name a few):

Blank greeting cards with decorative designs can be used for any occasion, and there is plenty of room for you to hand write a greeting card messages regardless of the event or occasion.

PaperDirect greeting cards also come in a variety of themes including:

  • Kids’ events
  • Church events
  • Patriotic celebrations
  • Tropical designs
  • Floral designs

When writing greeting card messages, be sure to write a personal message rather than a generic message that obviously has been used in everyone’s card. If you have relatives or friends who live far from you, you can send a greeting card just to say hello and that you’re thinking of your loved one or childhood friend. You will be amazed at how much joy a simple greeting card with a thoughtful message inside can mean to someone. Photo greeting cards are a great way to show off your beautiful family, especially to those friends and family members you have not seen in years.

Festive Graduation Photo Greeting CardsOnce you’ve chosen your greeting cards from PaperDirect, the challenge of writing the perfect greeting card message comes next. Depending on the occasion, your message will vary. Many people take the humorous route and write funny greeting card messages. The best tool for writing a funny message in someone’s greeting card is to use familiarity by thinking of something you know that the recipient is familiar with. Use that topic, information, or situation, to make up something funny. This will take some creativity on your part, but the funny greeting card message lets the recipient know that you thought about your message.

If your card is more serious or romantic, you may write a greeting card message that will bring the recipient to tears (but in a good way). If your goal is to make someone cry with your greeting card message, you are going to have to put a little extra effort into your writing. We suggest getting a really great gift, delivering the card in a special way, and writing an extremely personal message. Love poems are a great way to express specific romantic thoughts. The more specific you are the better the chance of bringing about the tears. If you are hand delivering your card, set the scene for romance and love by playing mood music, lighting candles, and cooking a fabulous dinner. All of this, combined with a beautiful greeting card message will let your significant other know how much he/she is loved.

Take a look at PaperDirect’s full line of greeting cards and order online today. Lovely cards, like those from PaperDirect, with greeting card messages from the heart will make anyone’s day special.

January 23, 2012

Do-It-Yourself Certificate Tips

Filed under: How to Design Certificates — Tags: , , — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

Scrollwork Standard CertificatesCertificates are an excellent means of recognizing someone’s good work, improved academic standing, superb attendance, work promotion, retirement or any other type of achievement you can think of. Designing and wording your own award certificates is a great way to save money, expend creative energy and make someone feel good all with one piece of paper and a few minutes of your time. And the great part is that you can do all of this by shopping PaperDirect’s online store.

If you have been asked to prepare award certificates for your company or you have decided to reward your employees or students with award certificates, you have come to the right place. PaperDirect has some great do-it-yourself certificate ideas and everything you need to get started creating your own certificates today!Above Beyond Deluxe Embossed Foil Seals

Certificate Tips and Accessories

PaperDirect offers a huge selection of printable certificate paper, and using certificate templates is super easy! PaperDirect has award certificate templates to help you design and print certificates. Free desktop printable templates actually format your certificate automatically and set up the margins, borders, tabs, and font. Our certificate template CD is a great idea if making certificates is something you do often or will now be doing regularly at work or at home. The certificate template CD includes 25 headings in three different styles and includes suggested wording for over 20 different types of awards. Once you design and print your certificates, you can jazz them up even further by placing them in a certificate folder, certificate holder or placing an embossed certificate seal on them. The possibilities of DIY award certificates are endless with PaperDirect on your team!

Lexington Certificate Diploma FramesDo-it-yourself certificates can be printed using a word processor in a matter of minutes. The templates do all the work for you—all you have to do is fill in the personal information such as the recipient’s name, date, etc. Just hit the “print” button and voila’! You can print one single award certificate or generate several with the touch of a button.

PaperDirect has DIY certificate templates for virtually every occasion, and if you have an occasion that may be a bit unique, you can simply make changes to an existing template to custom design a very special certificate. By placing the award certificate into a frame, the honoree will certainly feel special and appreciated. Check out PaperDirect’s selection of DIY certificate frames; we’re sure you’ll find one you love!

January 18, 2012

Thoughtful Student Recognition Ideas

Filed under: Employee Recognition Ideas,Student Recognition Ideas — Tags: — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

All American Casual CertificatesRegardless of what grade students are in, they all want some type of positive reinforcement when they do something well or improve on something they have been struggling with in the past. Whether it’s good behavior, improved behavior or good grades, teachers must show each and every student that they are valued and appreciated. Even the students who seem to do very little good in the classroom can be recognized for something positive during the school year. It never ceased to amaze me (as a former school teacher) how far a little positive reinforcement went, especially with kids who were used to only getting negative feedback.Perfect Attendance Award Casual Certificates

There are hundreds of creative, inexpensive student recognition ideas you can use in the classroom, and all you have to do is tweak the recognition to fit the age of your students.  You don’t want to embarrass a student by offering a reward that is too childish for his/her age.

Most children, regardless of age, love having special privileges. Asking a student to be the office delivery person, to take messages to other classrooms, or to leave a few minutes early for lunch or afternoon dismissal are student recognition ideas that kids in any grade will love. This works especially well when the student is one that many teachers would not trust with these privileges. When you offer a student with a reputation for being “trouble” the privilege of delivering a message to the office or having your copies picked up from the copy room, he/she will feel that you trust and respect him and that will go a long way in how he behaves in the future. When the “perfect” students are given privileges like that, it just doesn’t mean the same because it’s usually the well-behaved students and students with high grades that get privileges like this. So, this is one student recognition idea that really, really works.

Good Sport LetterTop™ Certificates by PaperDirectOne of the great things about this student recognition idea is that it cost you absolutely nothing. The best student recognition ideas are usually the ones that are monetarily inexpensive but are priceless when it comes to intrinsic value. If you have not tried giving privileges to poorly behaved students who show improvement in their behavior, give this one a try.

Writing a short note to parents or making a phone call home to report good behavior or an improvement in classroom performance is also a great student recognition idea that really does wonders to keep the student motivated to do well. Phone calls home are so often associated with bad news that a good phone call home will probably surprise the student (and parents) so much, he will want to continue to do even better to get future positive reinforcement.  This takes very little time, and you can even schedule one afternoon a month to make these positive phone calls home to students who are doing well.

PaperDirect is your online shopping source for other types of student recognition such as trophies, plaques and certificates to keep students motivated and provide incentive for continued good work and behavior. Read more Great Ideas for Classroom Recognition on the PaperDirect blog.

January 13, 2012

Types of Wedding Invitation Packages

Filed under: DIY Invitation Ideas — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

Heirloom Vine Specialty Pocket Invitation by PaperDirectIf you are planning a Do-It-Yourself wedding, you must look at wedding invitation packages and choose one that best fits your motif and overall theme. Before you looking at wedding invitation packages, you know the answer to two questions: how many people are you going to invite and how much can you spend on wedding invitations? Unless you know the exact answers to both of these questions, why bother looking at wedding invitation packages that may not fit your budget or that just don’t go with your wedding theme?

Take some time and sit down with your groom see if you can agree on how many people Floral Vine Rounded Gatefold Pocket Invitationswill be invited and how much you can spend on wedding invitation packages. With DIY (do it yourself) weddings, there is no wedding planner to bring you a bunch of invitations and then you just pick the one you like. (And that’s no fun anyway!)

One more thing to consider when purchasing wedding invitations is the cost of the postage. Some wedding invitations are designed in such a way that additional postage might be required when mailing them. Typically, this occurs more frequently with custom-made wedding invitations. Simple wedding invitations can be just as beautiful and much less expensive when it comes time to mailing them out to your invitees.

There is something else to factor in when deciding how many invitations to get: you may want to consider purchasing extra wedding invitations because no matter how careful you are when addressing the envelopes, mistakes will happen. Better to have a few extras around and avoid the headache of what to do when the addressee realizes that the names are spelled incorrectly on the envelope. Also, additional people might suddenly make it to the guest list, and if you don’t have any extras, you will not be able to formally invite these last-minute guests.

Timeless Elegance Flat InvitationsWedding invitation packages are typically put into one of three categories: modern, classic or destination. Modern wedding invitation packages will feature the latest trends in invitation design and have contemporary patterns and motifs in modern layouts. Classic wedding invitation packages will reflect the timeless beauty of elegant, traditional wedding invitations, and destination wedding invitation packages will offer a wide variety of invitation designs that span the globe.

PaperDirect is your online shopping destination for many of your DIY wedding needs. Wedding invitations, thank you notes and even wedding placecards and other accessories can all be found right in one place: online at PaperDirect. Looking for some creative DIY wedding invitation ideas? Read “How to Dress Up Invitations” from the PaperDirect blog.

January 5, 2012

How to Throw a Surprise Party Successfully

Filed under: Seasonal & Special Events Ideas — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

Fiesta Streamers Casual InvitationsThe key to throwing a surprise party is keeping the guest of honor from ever finding out, which is not easy. Another challenge throwing a surprise party presents is making sure the guest of honor actually shows up, and while many people say the only way to ensure this will happen is to hold the party at the guest of honor’s home, this can be very difficult to pull off. While you may know the schedule of the guest of honor and have help from his/her family members, something may come up that will make the guest of honor come home and catch everyone in the act of organizing the party.

Once you decide where you’re going to hold the surprise party, you must enlist the help of several friends and family members to make sure the party goes off without a hitch. There is nothing worse than the guest of honor finding out ahead of time that there is a “surprise” party in their honor. Then they’re forced to act surprised so as not to hurt the host’s feelings. Before you decide to host a surprise party, be sure the guest of honor will enjoy the occasion. Some people hate surprises so much that they may not even appreciate the gesture, which is the party host’s worst nightmare. Here are some suggestions on how to throw a surprise party in which your guest of honor will truly be surprised.Candle Confetti Casual Invitations

If the party is being thrown for someone in your household, ask a neighbor if you can store all the party supplies at his/her house, and make sure your neighbor keeps them well hidden just in case your guest of honor decides to stop by the neighbor’s house unannounced. If the celebrant does not live with you, then you can decorate your house in advance and just make sure the guest of honor does not stop by. Be sure that the people you ask for assistance can keep a secret because some people just cannot keep something this juicy to themselves.

Another suggestion on how to throw a suprise party is to have the the party held at a location the celebrant won’t consider suspicious. If you’re not having it in someone’s home, then choose a restaurant or bar that is familiar to the guest of honor. If you suggest going to someplace you’ve never been and don’t have a good excuse for going there, he/she may become suspicious.

Birthday Bash Casual InvitationsMake sure all the guests park their cars far enough away from the party site so as not to arouse suspicion. If the guest of honor shows up at a house with twenty cars, he will surely figure out what is going on.

Another great trick to surprise your birthday guy or gal is to take them to a birthday dinner and let them think that is the gift or the party. Then, after dinner you can suggest stopping by another establishment for dessert or even a friend’s house to pick up a gift and that is where the actual surprise party will be.

If you are thinking about throwing a surprise party for a friend or a loved one, you must carefully plan and also plan for the unexpected. PaperDirect is your online source for party invitations, banners, and all the party event accessories you will need. The PaperDirect blog offers some great party planning tips.

January 2, 2012

Golf Party Supplies and Ideas

Filed under: Seasonal & Special Events Ideas — Tags: — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

The Fairway Casual InvitationsAvid golfers dream about golf year round, but with inches of snow on the ground, it’s not realistic to think about having a golf party or a golf-themed party, but you can certainly start planning your golf party for the coming months. If you’ve been given the task of hosting or planning a golf party, you are going to need golf party ideas, especially if you’re not a golfer yourself.

Invitations

You can make the golf party invitations out of material that looks like a putting green or have invitations made in the shape of a golf ball or club. Using scorecards from an actual golf course, you can create golf party invitations from the scorecards and include “Tee Time” (the time the party begins), the name of the golf course (venue location), “Course Length” (length of party) and “Water Hazards” (whether the opportunity for Majestic Greens Casual Invitationsswimming is available). You may also include “19th Hole” information, which would be any additional information you’d like to include about the party such as whether or not to bring a dish or drinks, whether children are welcome, and if there is a certain attire required (golf attired would be a great idea here). Of course, it only makes sense that golf attire be required if you’re hosting a golf party! Guests can even purchase “Caddy Shack” costumes and old time golf costumes including knickers and the little golf hat men used to wear decades ago. The possibilities for golf party ideas are endless. You can also include golf photos on the invitations. If the party is honor of one person, you can include a picture of him/her playing golf.

Decorations

As far as golf part supplies are concerned, you will need golf decorations. You can set Tee Off Vinyl Bannersthe golf tone by hanging a golf banner at the entrance with some clever golf saying or just a simple “welcome” message. You can create golf flags to note important spots in the venue such as where the food and bar are located. You can also line the walkway to the front door of your home with colorful golf flags. You can even create numbered flags and give guests a program upon their arrival that says something like, “Hole 1–appetizers,” “Hole 2–salads,” “Hole 3–entrees,” and so on. You can also have your local copy shop blow up photos of golfers to have life-sized photos of some  of your favorite professional golfers throughout the party.

If you have extra golf bags, balls and clubs in your home (or donated by guests), you can use them as golf party supplies and place them throughout your home or golf party venue. You can even buy putting green-like turf to put along the walkway to your home or around the food/bar area.

You can set up a putting green and have a putting contest and offer prizes to winners. The possibilities for your golf party are endless, so with some creativity and some great supplies for PaperDirect’s online store, your golf party can be the best one ever! Here is an idea about golf party awards you can offer to adults and children.

Shop PaperDirect online today to buy banners, invitations and any other golf party supplies that will make your party a huge success.

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