Another bright idea for biz cards!

I'm always trying to find ways to make some tasks a little bit easier and economical. That doesn't always happen, but one area where I've found some ways to save some time and money is by using business cards for other purposes than "a business card." Last year I blogged about how I used biz cards as merchandising tools for my pins and magnets.

I make some of my sculptures from re-purposed burned out light bulbs.

Click here to see my Recyc-a-lite scultpures

Well, I've also thought of a way to use business cards for tags for some of my products. I try to include some type of info about what my product is and the name of the "collection/series" it belongs to. And then on the back of the card I leave room to write an item number/description/price. Using these helps save time on printing a card each time I need one and makes it easy to write out a price tag when I price new items.

Click here to see my Re-bottled sculptures

I make some of my sculptures from up-cycled shampoo bottles.

See how my shampoo bottle morphed into a cat.

This is a new set of biz cards that I had printed from the Vistaprint website. I tried to keep the same theme throughout my tag cards and biz cards to unify my biz identity.

A Bright Idea for Biz Cards!

I made and printed the pin cards (shown above) on my computer for my first craft show earlier this year. They worked out fine to merchandise my items. However, they became a bit tedious, especially since I had to cut out each and every card. After some brainstorming, I thought of using business cards as my cards to display both my pins and magnets. The business cards ended up being the perfect size for my work. Plus, I did not have to print them off on my computer or cut out each of them. Another bonus is that the business card cardstock is thicker than any of the cardstock I could find to use on my printer. Thus, I surfed my way online to Vistaprint and ordered my first set of merchandiser cards.

I found a cute, colorful, and simple template design to use for my merchandiser cards. I wanted the center of the card "blank" since this is the area where my pin or magnet would be attached to. All I added to the card design was my business name and slogan at the top. And then I added my By Hand profile address at the bottom of the cards.

The first set of cards I ordered were vertical. After attaching some of my pins/magnets to the cards, I realized that I needed some horizontally designed cards. I was very happy with how well the business cards worked out for what I needed. All I need to do when I want to attach a pin is punch a couple of holes in the card and then cut a slot between them to slide my pins on the cards. I love them. Plus, they don't cost a lot to use, approx $10 for 250 cards.

My froggy pin on merchandiser cards.

My frog and bunny pins posing on horizontal design.

This is how my pins look on the new cards.