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Jerrod Treangen
06-22-2005, 1:40 PM
We are looking at venturing into the kiosk realm of the malls. We would like to carry some "stock" items as well as customized availability for the holiday season. Anyone have ideas for stock items? Help would be greatly appreciated!

Shaddy Dedmore
06-22-2005, 1:52 PM
Search here for Ornaments. Lots of ideas on that (I use the 1/16" pre finished plywood from laserbits. Maple looks best on the tree to me, the walnut looks good for nature stuff, but gets lost in the shadows of a tree)

Berry Basket scroll saw patterns are good. in PDF format that can be imported, already in vector format. Not a lot of manipulation involved.

People also use acrylic.

Shaddy

Jerrod Treangen
06-22-2005, 1:58 PM
Ornaments are a great idea. I was planning on those. I am looking for ideas in teh way of "stock" images to put on marble, granite, glass, etc. for immediate sale by having them pre produced andd then also offer a custom option. I just am really not sure what to use as "stock" pictures or text for the best sales. Ideas?

Shaddy Dedmore
06-22-2005, 2:34 PM
And along the same line as Ornaments... make small ones with enough room to use a sharpie and they can be To:/From: tags. For customizing, you could add their name to the From, so they just have to add the To: name

As for the rest. Don't know. A generic black and white photo of a snow covered tree and or creek might look nice.

Actual Christmas stuff is nice, but don't overlook the fact that people are buying gifts, not just decorations. I made some boxes with Dragons and Celtic knotwork designs. Those sold the best at a flea market sort of setting with people browsing around. The santa and elf stuff I made didn't sell well. They got lots of looks and appreciation, but the other things made them say "Oh so-and-so would just love this". I also had some religious stuff that only sold OK too. I had a few Native American things that sold OK, and patriotc (any flag or eagle thing). But the dragon and Celtic designs were the big sellers.

These were my best sellers. The top left by FAR was the most popular. I'll probably make 50 of just those this year. (might not seem like a lot to all you bigger shops).

http://www.shaddysengraving.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Ornaments.JPG

just my $.03 (inflation)

Shaddy

Jerrod Treangen
06-22-2005, 3:03 PM
I agree Shaddy that it is important not to forget that these are gifts not just holiday season designs. Just asking for personal experienec from everyone on what sold and what didn't. Anyone else have good ideas?

Barbara Sample
06-22-2005, 3:22 PM
Do you mind telling me where you got those designs? Are they in a software, or did you do them yourself? I love them. You did a great job

Darren coffell
06-22-2005, 9:39 PM
what kinds of wood did you cut them out of? thickness?

I too would be interested in some stuff like that, are they custom designs? would you mind sharing a couple?

Jerrod Treangen
06-22-2005, 9:48 PM
These are very nice pieces you have suggested. I would like other ideas too if anyone has any for "stock" items for the holiday mall season. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Shaddy Dedmore
06-23-2005, 12:07 AM
I'm sure the others will chime in with some ideas, sorry to hijaak the thread Jerrod.

Darren and Barbara... Go to http://www.berrybasket.com/ (http://www.berrybasket.com/ProductDisplay.asp?txtSku=CDB9&txtref=SearchCat&txtAnchor=itemanchor12&txtintPage=1&strOption=Cat&txtProductSearch=&SelCat=CDs&txtSkuSearch=) for the Holiday Pattern CD. There's the WildLife one too, just look through all the CD's. There's also CD plans for other things, and Sets that save you a little dough. But so far, the 14.95 for the holiday CD has been my best investment thusfar. You can also use the art as clipart and make the hairline vector larger, so it rasters. Now you have holiday pictures to add to other things, not just cutting ornaments.

You could group themes and sell as a set for a discount. Make a Mobile. glue to other surface for a more 3d sort of look (look at the Plates CD for ideas about what that would look like, more work, but looks nice).

They are PDF files on the CD. So you just open corel and import the whole 90+ pages. go through the pages, then you have to Ungroup, take away the grey backgroud, copy-paste into a new layout for lasering...

So far, the 1/16" prefinished ply from Laserbits work best. I'd love to get it cheaper elsewhere, but most places sell solid stuff. I tried 1/4" ply, but it was solid core and didn't vector well, it smoldered. Other people have used the solid stuff and seem to like it, use acrylic also. You'll have to just see what you like and what sells.

Good luck,
Shaddy

Rodne Gold
06-23-2005, 12:59 AM
Here's an idea for cheaper plys , we use 2-4mm Light density fiberboard (the mdf and the hdf require too much power to laser with a clean edge) and we go to the veneer guys who veneer it for us , either single or double sided.
Laser cuts very well and is real wood. The fly in the ointment? Well we want large sheets of it , about 850mm x 500 mm and these tend to warp or bow if not stored well and in dry places. We stack it and put boxes of marble trophy bases on it.
I also have another solution , and that is to use formica and back it with something but it's not "real" wood.
We have developed a nice niche market with formicas , we have a large laminator and we run the formica thru it and apply a doubles sided mounting film to the back , we laser cur right thru the formica and backing and are supplying a lot of sign companys with formaca letters and logos. Best part of it all is that the formic laser engraved real well an can be filled with paints or waxes.
Formica (the stuff they use on kitchen tops) is real cheap, Ultra durable and comes in about a zillion textures and colours and patterns. Can be used for a lot of stuff. I do CnC work in supawood for point of sale stuff and often clad it in wood grain formicas , if you have a laser , you can do stuff with formicas that others cant even dream of. Wierdly , some colours and textures laser and vector well , others dont , we struggle to cut white which is a pity as it is a VERY cheap alternative to the traditional stuff used for labeing electrical boxes etc. some of the formicas need to be cut with a mask to avoid edge damage.
I dont sell Xmas ornaments retail much , but we made a clear acrylic paper cube with photos of the family lasered one side and a merry xmas message on the other and had it on display in the showroom (we bend ours , but you can easly do one with joints) and had this huge run on them , a LOT of our customers ordered up to 50 of them for themselves to give out as a cheap useful xmas gifts and a card combined. We have already had some enquiries for other items for this year and its only June!!!

We have had a huge interest in the tea light thing we are developing , its a piece of perspex as a base , with a hole cut in to take one of those cheap 5 hr tea light candles (they are those round flat ones in a sort of aluminium tin, we pay around 5c for a candle)
Behind the candle we laser engrave a real cheap small mirror tile and spray it a colour at the back (you get a mirror with a coloured pic engraved from behind) and in front of the tea light candle is the message engraved in one of those funky flourescent transluscent acrylics , so the candle reflects in the mirror and highlights the pic , the candle shines thru the transluscent coloured perspex in front of it and the engraving "glows" (we cut slots in the base so the mirror and front piece stand up) . Nice thing is that it packs flat , we intend to supply it with 4 of the candles.
Where you might also get some nice business is from companys and window decorations , last year we cut tons of stencils in cheap 0.7mm Styrene for a few chain stores that used them to spray temp decorations all over the store with fake snow etc and we did a lot of cutting thin films like holographic polyester that made hanging window displays
We cut a lot of expanded polystyrene foam stuff for xmas decorations too.
Regards
Rodney

Laura Zaruba
06-23-2005, 11:52 AM
Last year my biggest seller over the holidays was personalized cake and brownie pans. I selected a handful of stock designs and phrases and people could add the name of the recipient. You could do some with "From Grandma's/Mom's Kitchen" etc. to display and sell outright and take orders for the more personalized pans.

Jerrod Treangen
06-23-2005, 12:35 PM
Laura......very interesting concept. Could you tell me more? Pictures?

Laura Zaruba
06-23-2005, 1:07 PM
Jerrod,

Please check your e-mail. :)

Barbara Sample
06-23-2005, 2:22 PM
Thank you for sharing, I am going to look into it.
Barb

Anthony Welch
06-23-2005, 5:52 PM
My wife has, since 1989, bought a brass ornament from Wal-Mart and has had them engraved w/each childs name and year. Seems a person could take your ornaments and "text-to-path" a name and year to increase it's value/cost.

Jerrod Treangen
06-23-2005, 10:10 PM
Very good idea on the ornament customization. Any other ideas??

Keith Outten
06-23-2005, 11:03 PM
Check this thread.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=13624

Jerrod Treangen
06-26-2005, 12:14 PM
Any other great ideas out there?