6 Fat Men get stripped!

Oh my! When we put the bitty zip bags containing embellishments on the Glu-Dots, we call it "stripping"! So, when the printing arrived last week, we pulled the individual bags off their "strips" and attached them to the 6 Fat Men Flip-its. Yea...the 6 Fat Men are now all stripped and ready to ship!

We spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday finishing assembly on the new goodies and packing them in boxes. Lots of stores contract with us to "automatically" receive the new releases ASAP. Literally, these designs were hot off the presses. Some new items had been here for a week or two, but this last batch arrived in the "St. Nick" of time...including this year's Santa!

We do order packing assembling line style. Alan types all the invoices in advance, according to each shop's instructions. Then we divide the shipping table into 2 spaces. On the back side I have the invoices, and pull the inventory from my little assembly line.  Then I hand it to Alan on the other side of the table who selects the appropriate sized box and packs it up - he prides himself on a well-packed box!

By Saturday morning we were making such good progress on our packing, we joined our friends for a bike ride. After a summer of dismally hot weather, we finally had a cool morning to trek around the county. We rode to the little town of Bentley (20 miles away) where we had a yummy breakfast at the Bentley Bar & Grill, otherwise known as the Roadkill Cafe. The dress code was overalls, but we showed up in our geeky bike gear.

It was a beautiful morning for a ride, and I brought my camera, of course. I have a nifty little bag that hooks right to my bike frame with Velcro where I can easily reach it. For you city dwellers...here's some of what we saw along the way!

Miniature horses!  Yes, a farm where they raise little horses. They weren't very close to the road, so I zoomed in as far as I could for these mini horses!

Corn!  The only corn that is alive this year is the irrigated stuff, like this. The dry land corn is toasty and brown...sad year for the farmers.

This is what the river looks like - the sandbars are so big you can almost walk across, and there's vegetation growing on the sandbar. Drought!

Back to work and more packing. Gotta keep up our strength with some M & M refreshments!

Care and feeding of Elves 101

OK...the elves did show up!  No cute little costumes, but our friends Doug and Vicki are cute enough without the pointy ears. They showed up at our house/office after their real jobs and volunteered to help with this shipment. In return, I fed them!

I found a pan of enchiladas in my freezer. Check out the recipe from my daughter Ali's blog - http://gimmesomeoven.com/best-chicken-enchiladas-ever/?s=enchilada. I baked those and added 2 kinds of Mexi-cheese (elves are known to favor cheese). Doug showed up with a big bag of frozen food and whipped up this frozen concoction that made us all feel happy (and berry healthy), as we anticipated the strenuous work ahead.

After dinner, we cleared the kitchen table and got to work on a variety of assembly tasks...sacking Tiny Tidings XVI chartpaks, assembling 6 Fat Men Flip-its and assembling more of those Santa '11 Embellishment packs.

We took a break for some yummy ice cream pie I whipped up earlier. This is SO easy, and everyone loves it.  I used a pre-made graham cracker crust, then layered on 2 flavors of ice cream (chocolate chip and cappuccino chunky chocolate. In between the layers and on top I sprinkled some Heath bar chips.  Then top with hot caramel topping and whipped cream...and Santa's workshop is a happy place!

Alan is such an over-achiever, he was multi-tasking...eating pie and assembling embellishment packs at the same time. And who said he couldn't multi-task?!

Alas, the elves went home and we continued packing orders into the night. It really goes smoothly when the phone isn't ringing and you've had some good elf food for energy!

At home at the North Pole

Is this Santa's workshop, or does it just look that way!  Actually, I think Santa's workshop (if I can rely on those clever Santa Clause movies) is a whole lot cuter!

But we are busy as elves putting together the newest batch of L*K printing. They may not look as pretty, but getting those big boxes from the printer today is like Christmas morning to us!  Except when we open these boxes, we're not kicking back and relaxing...we're springing into action!

Our faithful part-time helper Carmen was here this morning, busily attaching snowflake charms to the 6 Fat Men Flip-its. Her son Elizeo has been coming to the office all summer (enjoying our computer and wireless internet!), and we'll miss him next week when he returns to school. Carmen usually helps us 2 mornings a week, but this week she agreed to work an extra day.

Carmen is a WONDERFUL helper here at L*K...and even doubles as my Spanish tutor. I'm giving my brain a rest from Spanish studies this summer, but I have been trying to learn Spanish for the last few years. It turns out, it's pretty hard to learn a foreign language when:
*you begin at age 50 (and studied German in school)
*you aren't faithful with your homework
*you talk too much in class
But it's still on my bucket list, and I am determined to dust off my dicionario and improve my Spanish skills. !Definitivamente!

Meanwhile (mientras, back at Santa's workshop, we're busy assembling Flip-its and making Santa's embellishment packs. Formula: one white snowflake button, 3 tiny black buttons and a pinch of beads go in every pack.

Tomorrow...packing the sleigh...I mean, the orders!

To the bindery, baby!

Back to our favorite 6 Fat Men...and Santa (can't forget him!).  I guess that makes 7 Fat Men on their long path to your favorite needlework shops. The photo below is the press sheet I brought home yesterday after we did the final color check.

Today we visit the bindery in another part of the print building. After the big, beautiful pile of press sheets have a little time to dry, they move to the bindery.  I'm sure you noticed that all 8 designs and the embellishment tag are ganged up together on the press sheet. They're all cozy and close, but now we need to separate them...separation anxiety!

Please put on your big protective ear covers for this part of the field trip, because it's noisy in here!

Here's one of the machines that processes the big press sheet. Before we can cut the items apart, we need to SCORE them. What is scoring? Scoring actually puts long creases in the paper (in all the right places) so the folding can occur without cracking the paper. We don't want any unsightly paper cracking!, .

One more little bit of printing trivia (sorry, I love this stuff)...it is important to print with the direction of the paper whenever possible.  Yes...paper has a direction, just like fabric!  Scroll back up to the photo of the whole press sheet. You can see that all the folds will occur in the same direction, which is how we like it!

With all the scoring done, it's time to cut and fold. This time we printed 6 Flip-its, 1 Snippet, 1 Quick-it (this item won't be available until later this fall) and one embellishment pack tag. When we deliver the graphics files to the printer, they include instructions for how to trim our designs to the proper finished size.

Does anyone know the phrase "full color bleed"? No, it's not a medical term. It's the printing process that allows the color to go all the way to the edge on the printing. In order to achieve this, we actually print extra color all the way around each design. Then, it is trimmed off, so the finished project doesn't have a ring of white around the edge. (That reminds of those funny commercials from my youth about the horrors of "ring around the collar" in your laundry!). But I digress.... 

Now I'm busy at my desk, catching up on other stuff, waiting for the printer to let me know when our printing will deliver. It might be late this afternoon, but probably tomorrow morning. Whenever it gets here, we're ready to get to work assembling!!! You can't pack orders until the products are assembled.

The snowflake buttons are all nestled on their trusty Glu-Dots. There are lots of extra snowflake buttons standing by in case they are called to duty. Our helper Carmen is going to work a few extra hours to help us with the big work crunch...she's the best! 

We're still waiting for those elves to show up!

6 Fat Men on the move!

They may be chubby, but these 6 jolly men are setting a fast pace!  Yesterday we looked at 2 sets of printer proofs (color and black/white).  After making one minor change and approving those, the printer got things ready for the press.

I use different printing processes for different products, mostly depending on the quantity required. I have 3 local printers who are all awesome, and all super helpful. When I print Flip-its, it is a LARGE press run, so I use the BIG printing press. To make things as cost effective as possible, I try to fill the entire press sheet, jamming the whole Flip-it series and anything else I have ready that will fit.

Here's the pressman standing in front of the BIG printing press. The press is the big long machine behind him. It even has a little stairway and platform all around it that he uses to keep things running smoothly. Behind him (rather hidden in this photo) is where the finished printing emerges. 

When I have a job on the press, I am "on call" with the printer. (Sounds important...HA!) They told me yesterday to expect a press time today, then called this morning with an exact time for me to arrive.  Before I get there, they have already made the plates with the L*K goodies and put the job on the press. Then they have start preliminary printing, carefully adjusting color so it matches the proofs I approved yesterday. By the time I arrive, everything is looking colorful and nice.

This table is next to the giant printer in the previous photo. On top is the L*K press sheet for our approval. You can see there are a zillion little knobs and adjustments that the pressman uses to get things "just right". I rarely make changes at this stage, but it is possible to make all sorts of color adjustments...on the whole sheet, or selectively on certain parts of the press sheet. 

Here we are...the whole happy gang! Left is my printing rep, then me holding up the pretty press sheet, then the 2 pressmen. We're all happy because I just signed my name and they can proceed with the printing. They tell me it's pretty rare for someone to want their photo. I remind them that I'm their only cross stitch client!

Tomorrow's itinerary...field trip to the bindery!  Remember your permission slips!

Countdown continues with SNEAK PEEK on Santa '11

Our countdown continues toward printing and distributing our new batch of holiday goodies. Today we got color proofs from the printer. Our rep delivered to our office/house and I took awhile we look them over...AGAIN.

No, this isn't the same photo I used in the last post. These are the color proofs from the printer. Notice how the front and back covers are both on the same sheet. After they are printed, they will go to the bindery. Then will use a machine to "score" the paper so it can be folded. Then the front and back will wrap around to become...well, the front and the back! 

BTW...I'm thrilled with how the color looks on these proofs. I deliver the actual models to the printer so they can match color as carefully as possible during this process. They did an awesome job!

What's this? I also get separate proofs for the black/white insides of each design. On the next set of proofs (maybe tomorrow?), the inside and outside of each design are combined (stapled together actually). Then we can make sure everything is right side up.  Have you ever opened a design and everything inside is backwards or upside down? It's an easy mistake!

And now for the SNEAK PEEK!  Today we're also proofing this year's Snippet Santa and the matching embellishment pack.  You can see Santa is coming our way in a super sleigh this year. Check out the funny little skinny rectangular proof on this photo - this will become the little embellishment pack insert. The cover is on the right side and the back portion is on the left side of the proof. 

We'll be VERY busy later this week sacking these inserts and adding the buttons and beads into each embellishment pack. WOW - we could really use some elves around here!

Countdown to 6 Fat Men!

The last time we checked in on our favorite chubby guys (July 22 post) we were busy pulling all the info together for the graphic designer. I had finished stitching all of the models, got them framed, and photographed each and every one. I gave the photo files, the graph and instruction files and the actual models to Janice, my graphic designer, so she could work her magic. I also pulled all of the men together for a big GROUP PHOTO - more about that in a future post!

I think I've told you a bit about Janice before, but she deserves some extra space!  Janice is a long time friend (she sewed me crib bumpers when Alison was a baby!) and a very talented gal. She is a full time graphic designer (her day job) but freelances for L*K on nights and weekends. Janice is also a talented seamstress - she used to be the finisher for my LNS.  If that isn't enough, she is also a cross stitcher...which is SO helpful because she actually understands what we are publishing!

Janice is the one who makes L*K designs look good on the shelves. She takes all the info I give her and arranges it on the pages for the printer. Janice adds backgrounds, fun graphics and all the special things that make a L*K design look like....well, an L*K design! Collaborating with Janice on how my designs will look is one of my favorite parts of my job.  I send her ideas about how I want something to look, she tweaks them (often comes up with something better) and makes it happen. Because Janice is free-lancing for L*K, we work some really weird hours...like after dark! But I try to be available whenever she is sending files and ready to work!

Here are our working files on the 6 Fat Men Flip-it series. Check out the pretty background colors! We love coordinating the whole series, so they will look pretty on the LNS shelves, and in your hands. These are color printouts of the front and back covers, and black/white printouts of the insides of each graph.  Time to proof, proof, proof! I look for corrections, along with my proofer Melissa, and we submit changes back to Janice. Then she sends us corrected files, and we do it all over again. It's a evolving PROCESS!

Here is our new little 6 Fat Men logo that will appear on each snowman in the series! We also added a fun little snowman saying to each Flip-it, besides the one that appears in the stitchery!  I love the saying on this one..."Wearing white is always appropriate".

Stay tuned - the snowman countdown continues this week!