Congrats to Kaleb Leijaon being the first winner for the Sticviews Giveaway!  We’re excited to announce Kaleb as the first winner of the $50 sticviews giveaway.  And we’re really excited to see how he uses sticviews!  Contact us for details about claiming your gift.

We had 14 entrants (blog, facebook, and twitter) and Kaleb was the fifth person to post on the blog.

Also, we wanted to take this time to announce that we are in the final laps of finishing our new website!!! We are all really excited about it, but to get it finished by the end of the month we really need to take a step back from blogging so we can use all of our writing talent on the website. 

Please bear with us as we won’t have as many new designs and ideas coming out…but get excited as we will have some awesome design ideas and content coming out in March!  But we would still LOVE to hear your ideas for using sticviews, so keep the ideas coming!

Keep sticin!

Kat

Missy over at How Does She had a great idea for using custom stickers to organizer her children’s rooms.  She ordered a custom cloth stic of her daughter in dress up clothes then stuck it to the wall where all of her dress up items go.  What a great way to help your kids remember where their toys or dress up items go!  And the great thing is that you can remove the sticviews as your children grow up and replace them with a different image and it’s not going to damage the surface.  Missy said,
I love the idea of decorations that can be updated when you want.”

Another great use of sticviews.  Have a stool that your kids use?  I know some kids have their own stools - who not spruce up the stool with a custom photo sticker of your child.  A great quick way to add some style.  I love the way Missy decorated her child’s stool.  The black and white image looks great on an antique-looking stool!  Another great way to use custom photo stickers from sticviews - way to go How Does She team!

Another great use for sticviews, also from the How Does She team, is to use pictures of your kids as labels for storage boxes.  You know all the things your kids bring home from school or church?  Maybe projects or drawings that you want to save?  You can order 3″x3″ photos of each of your kids and stick them to these plastic bins.  Not only is it easier to remember who’s box is who’s, but it also looks better than sticking a white label on the front.  And adding the photo makes the storage space look more polished using sticviews custom photo stickers.

Sticviews offers great ways to organize your stuff with a custom style.  Not to mention it doesn’t ruin any surfaces and you can re-stick them anywhere!  Using cloth stic would be best recommended for organization purposes so you really can re-stick them anywhere!

Sticviews is offering a $10 discount on the first 100 orders before February 18th if you use the promotional code “HowDoesShe.”
How would you use sticviews to organize your life?

Keep Sticin’

Kat

Here at sticviews our business thrives off the creative minds of YOU, our consumers. And we’ve decided we really want to hear more about what you would do with sticviews in many different situations.  That’s why we’re starting the sticviews giveaways.  One lucky winner will receive a $50 gift certificate to sticviews for anything their heart desires - as long as it’s only $50 and is made of stickers, of course!

That’s right…we’re going to be doing giveaways TWICE a month for a $50 gift certificate to sticviews.

Here’s how the first giveaway is going to run.

1) Comment here or on our Facebook pageabout a great idea to use sticviews for Valentine’s Day decor or gifts.

For additional entries:

2) Tweet about the giveaway (ex: I just signed up for the @sticviews giveaway on their facebook page http://bit.ly/90t7rC for a $50 giftcard! #giveaway). Let us know in a comment.

3) Sign up for our newsletter and let us know in a comment.

The contest ends NEXT Wednesday (February 3th).  The winner will be announced on Facebook, Twitter and our blog.

Steve Jobs of Apple introduced the newest technology from Apple yesterday.  The new Apple iPad is “so much more than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone,” Jobs stated yesterday as reported in The Dallas Morning News.

Here in the sticviews office our first reaction was, “what does the back look like?”  And fancy that…the back is plain - perfect placement for a sticview custom decal!  I crafted up a couple mock ideas for a custom iPad skin and I’d love to hear your reaction.  What do you think about the iPad?  What do you think about skinning the iPad?  It’d be great for business or personal use (only personal use featured below). Though I think I’m okay with my MacBook Pro and I don’t have any intention on buying an iPad anytime soon, I think it’s a great idea and will only develop over time. Check out my ideas for custom decals for the new iPad!

Using sticviews custom decals really optimizes the ability to not only distinguish your business brand but your personal brand.  Nowadays, your personal branding is just as important as your business branding strategy.  How would you use sticviews to distinguish your personal brand?  Or how would you use sticviews to show your personal? 

I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on the iPad and using a custom decal to skin the iPad!  Just leave a comment or tweet at me (@katfarmer).

Keep sticin’

Kat

Featured Order of the Week

I wanted to showcase an awesome use for custom decals for home decor using sticviews.  One of our customers ordered wrought iron decals on white stic to decorate her entertainment center!  How awesome does it look using custom decals to decorate and give the furniture an updated look? 

Wrought iron designs (which are featured in our gallery) have been used for window decor, but I never thought about using wrought iron on furniture!  I wanted to feature this innovative idea.  What do you think about it?  Not only did she use images from our gallery, but she customized them with the “M” in the center of the two smaller wrought iron designs to create a monogram - what a neat idea!

Using sticviews for home decor really adds some great style to the room.  Also using the dark wrought iron ties into the dark of the “Love,” “Family,” and “Joy” words featured over the entertainment center. 

Tell me what you think of this idea of using sticviews to create a new, affordable look for your living room.  I’d love to have some feedback!

Keep sticin’

Kat

Valentine’s day has become such a commercialized holiday - seems like it’s more about chocolate than anything else! Nothing against chocolate, of course! It’s a great gift, but why not celebrate this Valentine’s day by giving your loved one something a little more personal than just candy and flowers? It may be easier than you think to put together a thoughtful, personalized Valentine’s day gift. Here’s one idea I came up with of what you could do this Valentine’s with sticviews custom prints:

Step 1:

Find all your favorite photos of you and your Valentine:

Photos by Flickr user slemmon

OR set up a photo shoot with a photographer so you will have good quality photos to work with. Great photography is an investment - it’s something that archives your life’s story so you remember people and events worth remembering. Truly gifted photographers will be able to capture great moments that really show your personality. Here’s some of our favorite photographers:

• Sweet E Images
• Keri Meyers Photography
• Table 4 Weddings

Step 2:

Upload your photos to sticviews.com

sticviews prints photo-quality prints, both on several different types of adhesive materials and poster paper (we call it art paper on the website). All high quality, high resolution photos print beautifully on sticviews. This makes sticviews perfect for custom photo enlargements. It also means you can personalize any gift with your great photos by simply peeling and stic’in your photos on as decorations.

Step 3:

Give your custom photo enlargements as a gift or personalize another gift with your custom sticviews photo prints.

Here’s some ideas of what you could do with your custom Valentine’s sticviews:

Custom photo enlargements for your bedroom:

Photos by Flickr users slemmon, sonofgroucho

Custom laptop skin:

Create a personalized memory box:

Fill a box or chest with momentos from you and your Valentine’s love life and stic your sticviews custom sticker photographs on it. Create a custom sticker label with our text editor.

Photos by Flickr users brenda-starr, slemmon

Skin your coffee table or other furniture:

Create a photo collage straight onto your coffee table without worrying about messy glues or laminates. Just peel and stic your sticviews custom photo stickers onto a flat surface. Peel off and stic on again if you mess up - sticviews are always easily removed and come off clean. Check out how we skinned the sticviews’ office coffee tables with animal print in this blog article!

Decorate your their office space and skin their office desk:

Surprise your Valentine by personalizing their work space with your photo stickers and custom photo enlargements.

I hope this gives you some ideas about how you can give a personalized Valentine’s gift this year!

Happy stic’in,
Sonya

Custom Table Furnishing with Sticviews

So, you have these boring tables around  your house and you’re not sure what to do with them to make them look better.  You could go the painting route, but why not pick a design that you can change easily over time.  Using sticviews you can create custom skins for your tables or other home furnishings.  We had two white square tables in our office and we wanted to spruce them up.  I want to show you how easy it is to re-finish your tables using sticviews custom table skins.

The supplies you need to re-finish your tables are simple: the custom sticker from sticviews, a spray bottle of water (or damp cloth), a small squeegee or credit card, a tape measure and scissors.

First you want to clean the surface of your table.  You never know what dust is on the surface and it can get stuck to the sticker and leave bumps.  If you want to make your skin fit really well to the surface of your table make sure to wipe it down with water or surface cleaner.  Having a clean surface allows the custom sticker to stick really smoothly to the surface of the table.

Next you want to measure the table to make sure your custom sticker will fit exactly.  Now, you can order the custom sticker to fit exactly to the surface, but we’ve found it to be easier to make the sticker just a little larger than the actual surface so you can trim to fit.  After you measure the table cut the sticker to fit.

Now that you have the sticker cut to fit your table it’s time to start skinning!  Using your spray bottle generously spray the adhesive side of your custom sticker and the top of the table.  Spraying the surface allows for you to easily slide the sticker on the surface to fit it to the corners more precisely.  Once you have the sticker on you can use the squeegee to smooth the surface out to avoid air bubbles. (I used a paper towel to catch the water as it came out from under the sticker.)

And there you have it your newly furnished custom tables!  Using sticviews to create a unique look for your tables is a great afternoon project.  It’s always helpful to  have another pair of hands - this is something your kids would love to help with!

You can select from the many designs we have on the sticviews website or upload your own design or picture.  We have everything from animal print to modern design or landscapes.  Maybe you want to skin a table with a family photograph or a picture of a beautiful flower - the possibilities are endless with sticviews custom stickers!!  Amy over at Living Locurto also skinned her kids tables.  Check out her blog here to see her table skins.  What DIY projects could you use sticviews for?  I’d love to hear your feedback!

What to bring to a conference?

So, you’ve started a blog or a business and you’re building a following - now what?  Now is the time to start really learning from the experts.  Conferences are a great way to meet other entrepreneurs in your business area and learn from the best in the industry.  Conference such as Blissdom and BlogHer for the women bloggers, SxSW for music, film and interactive, Blog World Expo for all bloggers, and many more are great ways to learn from others.  Sticviews is sponsoring Amy Locurto and Angie Arthur of I Heart Faces for the Blissdom conference this February and we wanted to pass along some useful hints for being prepared to attend your conference.

1. Business Cards – We just got some really awesome business cards from moo.com and we’re really excited to get them shipped in. Hopefully we’ll have them in time for the next Social Media Club Dallas event with Chris Brogan on the 21^st!  Business cards are a great way to give your contact information to people you meet and helps you follow up with people after the conference is over.  You can always go with innovative creative designs like the ones on Web Designer Depot.  TIP: Make sure to put your social network contact information on your cards (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) - many people forget! And you could always be creative. Amy Locurto handed out her business cards with a little Valentine’s Day sticker gift - no one threw those away!
   
   

   
   

2. Create a list before you go of questions you’d like answered or specific people you want to seek out. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to talk to someone who has more experience in particular areas that could really be of benefit to you and your website.  TIP: You can tweet about your questions too!  If you don’t have a smart phone or a laptop for the weekend I recommend you borrowing one for the weekend.
3. Laptop skins – If you are a known blogger, or a beginner, getting a laptop skin with your blog name or banner on it really helps people put a face to the name of your blog. What a great way to promote your blog through technology.  Angie and Amy from I Heart Faces received their laptop skins from sticviews. Remember…it’s hard to recognize faces, but it helps when people can recognize your blog banner or twitter profile photo.  Amy Locurto recommends putting your blog banner and your Twitter photo on the laptop skin works great.
4. iPhone skins – Do you have an iPhone or another smart phone? You can get custom stickers to fit on the back of your phone (see below) to also promote your blog.
   
5. T-shirts – This is always a fun thing to have around. Another great way to make your brand known while walking around a conference. Nomee handed out free t-shirts at the Twestival event last year - great way to build awareness and recognition of your brand.
   
6. Camera – You never know who you are going to meet at the conference, and it’s a great way to showcase things you saw when you blog about your experience.
7. Do some research on the presenters of the conference. It’s good to come in well prepared to soak up the knowledge they have to offer without having to figure out who the people are before hand.
8. Mints or gum – you are going to be doing a lot of talking, and you should pay the favor to your neighbor!

There are always lists on the conference sites of extra things to bring, but this list is pretty comprehensive of things you need to bring!  Is there something you won’t go to a conference without?  Let us know - leave a comment or reach out to me on Twitter (@katfarmer).

I like allitteration, apparently!

I’ve been busy managing the print production here at sticviews custom sticker printing, but I wanted to give a quick update on some adorable laptop skin orders we’ve been getting! On sticviews.com, you can upload any photo and create your own custom sticky print - whether it’s a custom laptop skin, car decal, wall decal, or a window sticker. What better way to personalize your home than with photos of your cute pet?

Our custom laptop skins are probably our most popular product because they’re the most affordable custom skins on the market. Most are about $10. All of the images below are orders by real sticviews customers, except the kitten laptop (I guess we have a lot of dog lovers!).

Add your dogs' names with the sticviews text editor

Make a collage of your favorite photos for your custom laptop skin

Kitten photo by Flickr user mathias-erhart

Sad puppy dog eyes! Upload any photo for your personalized laptop skin

Hamsters are pets, too! Create your own custom iPhone sticker for $1

Create your own custom wall art with your pet photos. The wall decals shown here are circles on white stic.

I hope these give you some ideas to start creating your own custom decals!

Happy stic’in,
Sonya
Follow me on Twitter!

sticviews offers a great way for brands to promote their identity through the use of custom adhesive vinyl stickers.  The great thing about sticviews is they stick anywhere and come off clean.  As most of you know sticviews communicates a lot with customers through social media including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and more - which is why nomee is now sticviews’ official social media application.

So, what is nomee?  According to the CEO of nomee, Kevin Mokarow, “nomee is a tiny app that harnesses the power of the entire social web, integrating more than 140 social sites and giving users one dashboard to follow and publish on the entire social web.”

What does this mean for the sticviews brand?  It means that sticviews consumers are able to see all of sticviews social media content through one application (below).  What a great way to manage your social media content for yourself and for your followers - not to mention a great way for you to follow other people.

What does this mean for a company?  Mokarow explains that nomee allows for an increase in customer engagement.  “Instead of waiting and hoping for users to stumble across your social content online, nomee delivers it to customers live 24/7.”

I wanted to feature one of our bloggers this week, Allie from Fresh Confessions of a Screwed Up Texan. She’s a new friend we’ve made from the Dallas-area and we’re super excited about her idea for sticviews.  Allie ordered some cloth stic photos of her family and installed them on ceramic tiles.  She’s hosting a $50 giveaway of sticviews products THIS week.  (Tomorrow is the LAST DAY of the giveaway.)

The custom stickers look great on the tiles and they definitely serve several different opportunities.  She could use them on little art easels to showcase the family pictures or as coasters for her coffee table.  The pictures turned out great!  We even sent her a few of them on white vinyl as well. 

I cannot wait to see what the winner of her giveaway decides to order with their $50 gift card to sticviews.com!

Here at the sticviews lab in Plano, TX we’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks getting orders out in time for Christmas to be here.

And, last week we had wonderful white Christmas come our way down south and it was a refreshing change in the Texas weather!  Bryce (our CEO) installed some awesome snowflake tiles, featured below, that definitely fit well with the weather here in Plano for last week.  What a great way to use custom stickers for your holiday decorations!

He also installed a stic-on Christmas tree on a door in his kitchen.  It looks great!  He even topped it off with one of the tile stars as the tree topper.

These stics below are my favorite holiday treat.  Stic-on wreaths!  Bryce used them on the windows on the front of his house.  Much more affordable them buying a wreath (most of which the nice ones I saw going for at LEAST $60-$100) and definitely more convenient than making your own.  And these look great.  My mom “borrowed” my wreath and has it hanging on the glass door of a armoire in the living room.  All our guests loved it!

I know it’s after Christmas, but I thought these were pictures I just had to share with you all.  Sticviews are a great affordable and creative way to decorate for any occasion - Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and more!  I hope you enjoyed these ideas for using custom stickers to enhance your holiday decor!  Come to our site and check out our gallery for other holiday decor ideas!

Keep Sticin!
Kat

My First DIY Christmas Gift

Being a full-time grad student and working, Christmas is on a tight budget this year.  That is when I came up with the idea of using sticviews custom stickers to help meet my DIY project needs: make awesome hot cocoa and decorate with fabric and custom stickers!

I started out for a search of the perfect hot cocoa - my mom uses this awesome recipe from Cooks.com, but we have a little family secret added to bring out the richness of the chocolate.  Use your imagination to adapt the recipe!

Then I went to Handcock Fabrics in Plano to get my fabric for the lids. They were having a great sale: $0.99 for each Fat Quarter (18′x22′) and $0.50 for the ribbon!  (I could have just bought 2 Fat Quarters and 1 ribbon strand, but I didn’t realize that till after I finished.  And I wanted to have four different fabrics - so I’ll have to find something else to do with the fabric - maybe use as wrapping paper!

Then I mixed all the wonderful ingredients together.  I had a hard time because this is a recipe for a large amount, and I didn’t have a bowl big enough.  Next thing on my list is to get a larger mixing bowl! (I split the recipe into two bowls)  I used two cup mason jars (from Target - four jars for just over $4.00) for the hot cocoa.

Now I have 12 mason jars ready for decorating!  I started with sticking on the custom sticker I made.  There are several types of free downloads on Living Locurto that I used for inspiration, but then I found one on Blonde Designs I ended up adapting one of the freebies and making it my own!

Then I cut out squares of the fabric (not an exact measurement) and secured the lids.  Added the ribbon and there you have it!  It makes a perfect gift for friends, family and co-workers!  I spent about 3 hours total between mixing the cocoa, designing the sticker, and decorating the jars.  (My only suggestion is to use a wire ribbon instead - mine were a bit hard to tie tightly.)

The best part about this is that the recipent won’t have to throw away the jar.  They can reuse it because the sticker will come off clean after they are all done with the cocoa!

Thanks for reading my blog!  Do you have good DIY projects that could use custom stickers?

Keep sticin’

Kat Farmer

Wow, the past few days have been a whirlwind here at the sticviews office!  We’ve had lots of Christmas gifts come in and they look fantastic.  We’ve had great designs come in for laptop skins, iPhone stickers, window stics, car decals and more!   I’ll have to upload images of my favorite custom stickers tomorrow so you all can see.

Here’s a quick overview of what we do to process orders.  After we prepare the files in the system we send them to our printer to print on white vinyl, clear vinyl and cloth stick.

Next is the cutting stage.  We have several options for shapes of stickers (rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, and semi-circle).  Our cutter is really fast and cuts the images very precise!  (I really like the Corvette laptop skin below.) People have been utilizing some awesome designs that are featured in the sticviews gallery and some have even uploaded their own unique designs!

The last stage is packaging!  Everyone gets a few free samples (a stained glass sticker, a holiday sticker and a cloth sticker) and installation tips.  I love the zebra laptop skin, doesn’t it look great?  I’m thinking about sticking my desk with zebra tomorrow!!

So there you a have it - the custom sticker orders are on their way via UPS to the Santa’s across the US!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Keep sticin!

Kat Farmer

Another great Dallas Christmas Design tip: Christmas Car Decals!

Driving around Dallas I’ve seen TONS of cars with wreaths and Christmas bumper stickers.  But what about Christmas removable stickers that won’t damage the surface - sticviews is the answer!  Sticvuews custom car decals can be your next Christmas decor idea!

Whether you want to just have a wreath on the hood, the back or the door; stick up some presents or just say “Merry Christmas!” Sticviews is your temporary solution to stick up your car with custom car decals.

Now you can be the next new thing in the Dallas area with innovative car decals for Christmas decor.  And it takes a matter of minutes.  Just go to sticviews.com and either select an image from our gallery or upload your own.  You can always find website that have free images and upload those as well.

I found lots of Christmas vector images from Vector Jungle!

If you have an idea for a great decorating tip - let me know!

Kat Farmer