Just Mauied

Won't this be a darling gift personalized for a couple who just got married in Hawaii! Maui that is. When it's an ornament we'll put names on their tummies and Just Mauied with the date inside the little heart. We make other ornaments for weddings, and we make ornaments for souveniers of tropical vacations so this new design will be great for either occasion.

New Family Tree ornament

Here's a drawing of one of our new designs
for 2008. It's a Family Tree because you can
personalize each little character on the tree with
a family member's name. You can see our last
minute change - a bigger star on the top. We think the year, 2008 will look cute up there and
our customers can put a family name or a phrase
on the white base. We're thinking of doing some similar products using a dog and a cat. We'll see how the sample comes out. This will be a nice addition to our other Family ornaments.

Coming up with New Products each Spring

Every Spring we have an opportunity to take a look at our fabulous selection of Christmas designs and do our inventory and talk about what our customers loved this last year! Then we plan a nice selection of new ornaments that will really compliment our current ones and have somthing fresh and new for everyone who has bought year after year.

Believe me, after 37 years in the Christmas ornament business it is a challenge each year to think of original ideas! And all of our ideas are ORIGINAL - and designed by Dorr Eddy, one of our owners and a talented product designer who does all the product development for Calliope Designs as well as working for other companies designing products in ceramics, glass, wood and plastic.

When you see 37 years in business, you must realize, Dorr is an old school designer doing every single product by hand drawing and hand coloring each item. No computer generated designs here!

We start with a list of ideas based on ideas we've had all during the year. He works on tissues and drawing paper and may end up drawing and coloring the design several times before it's in rough draft form. After the draft is completed we evaulate it for subject, color, size, and theme. We check to make sure there are great places to personalize - room for everyone's names and the year and a phrase. We make sure the colors are good on a Christmas tree! We discuss each drawing and how it can be made even cuter, then Dorr does a final rendering. After this is complete we apply any extra touches to the finished art - glitter, silver or gold paint, lettering.

When the artwork is complete it's time to have the samples made up to make sure the ornament is perfect! Here are some images of new ideas we have for 2008:

Personalized Ornaments by Calliope: Starting a Collection of Personalized Ornaments Part 1

Personalized Ornaments by Calliope: Starting a Collection of Personalized Ornaments Part 1

Starting a Collection of Personalized Ornaments Part 1

Christmas is a holiday of family traditions - That's one of the things that makes it so special. We decorate our homes a certain way, have wonderful meals with special dishes that we loved as children, attend midnight church services, open Christmas stockings and exchange gifts with each other! And, as you all know, the holiday season can become very very hectic - trying to get everything done on time and meet everyone's expectations.

This is especially true in our family as 36 years ago we started a Christmas ornament business - and believe me, we work non stop right up until Christmas Eve.
You can read about our business at http://www.calliopedesigns.com/about_personalized_ornaments.aspx. To simplify our lives at Christmas time we started ornament collections for all of our children, neices, nephews, and now their children by giving them a personalized ornament each Christmas following birth. Of course, now we're giving out engaged, wedding, and expecting ornaments - as well as starting second generation baby collections. http://www.calliopedesigns.com/wedding-ornaments-480.html shows some of our cutest wedding ornaments!

We have baby ornaments for boys, girls, twins, and triplets. http://www.calliopedesigns.com/babys-first-christmas-ornaments-478.html And, we even have ornaments for expecting couple.

Always remember to make a personalized ornament with a name, a phrase (Baby's First Christmas) and the year. Some baby ornaments have room to personalize the ornament with the baby's day of birth, weight, and length! When you find an ornament at Calliopedesigns.com you can personalize the ornament any way you want!

Storing your Personalized Ornaments

Ornament storage boxes:

Martha Stewart Living recommends each ornament be stored in it’s original box before putting away until next Christmas. If the original box is not longer available, wrap each ornament in acid free paper, and carfully place it in a cardboard box with cardboard dividers to protect each ornament. The cardboard dividers give the box strength too – to keep it from being crushed in storage thus damaging your wonderful ornaments.

Martha recommends labeling each box with the inventory of what’s inside!

In our family we made our own Christmas ornament storage boxes using our favorite gift wrap paper glued to the sides of the cardboard box. We decorated the outside of each box with cut out portions of our favorite Christmas cards – making a collage of Christmas memories. My 87 year old mother has given me these boxes now, and it’s amazing to remember the many years we decorated a tree together.

Here are some ornaments that might be nice for a collection for the children in your family, http://www.calliopedesigns.com/friends-and-children-509.html. We recommend keeping that collection for each child in it's own box. If you have dough ornaments, be sure and keep them in an airtight, tupperware type container. Label each container with the child's name so that next year the child can anticipate unpacking his or her own special collection.

Storing your Personalized Ornaments and all other Christmas Ornaments

Storing your Personalized Ornaments and all other Christmas Ornaments

Beautiful Christmas ornaments are often fragile so it’s important to develop a nice way to store them and keep them safe from breakage, weather conditions (humidity, heat, dampness, etc.) and little unwanted creatures (bugs and mice)!

Calliope Designs offers two types of personalized ornaments. Our traditional “dough” ornaments and our new claydough ornaments. http://www.calliopedesigns.com/about_personalized_ornaments.aspx




Our traditional dough personalized ornaments are made of a mixture of flour, salt, water and colors, and are baked in an oven until hard, then glazed with a clear shiney coating to protect them for years. No matter how thick the coating, dough ornaments need to be stored in an airtight container to protect them from any moisture deterioration. We recommend they be stored in a tupper ware type container or a zip lock freezer bag for ultimate protection. Using this practice we continue to use the ornaments we made when we first started Calliope Designs in 1971! http://www.calliopedesigns.com/about_how_made.aspx to make your own dough ornaments.

Our new claydough ornaments are made of a polymer clay – and it is not subject to any moisture or weather conditions, bugs, or mice. They are also extremely durable. So there are not specific storage requirements for their preservation.

An Individually Handmade Christmas Ornament

An individually handmade Christmas ornament is something that you can be proud to give as a gift. The wide range of holiday ornament designs, from pet ornaments to occupation ornaments, means that you can find something special for everyone on your list. There are ornaments for athletes with sports like football, wrestling, baseball, fishing, tennis and karate (and more!) and each can be personalized with a name, a year or a special message. Do you have a new baby in your life? We have special ornaments for "Baby's First Christmas" for that new bundle of joy! These ornaments last a lifetime and will bring a smile of joy to your loved one each year that they display these treasured gifts. These beautiful personalized ornaments are crafted to capture the spirit of Christmas for people of all ages! Find a huge selection of personalized ornaments at http://www.calliopedesigns.com.

Christmas in August

As teh temperatures soar and we enjoy the beach, ice cream, and outdoor picnics it seems a funny time to think about snow, Santa Claus and Christmas - but that's what Christmas in August is all about! There are five months until families and friends gather to celebrate the Christmas holidays but it is both fun and practical to make some Christmas shopping plans now. Time for shopping is hard to find in December, butnow, in August, it's a breath of fresh air. Start by finding the perfect personalized ornaments for your family and friends. Calliope Designs personalized claydough and dough ornaments are just the right items for everyone.
http://www.calliopedesigns.com.

New Website Part 2

We are putting some new pages on our website. So along with a new look there will be new information. The first new page is going to be about making custom designed products. These would be for corporate gifts, organizational fundraisers, and gifts at events.

Our minimum order is only 288 pcs. Considering the work involved in developing a custom designed product, that's not very many pieces. And the pricing is good - we can sell these at our wholesale cost as there is some economy in this process.

The customer needs to plan ahead. It takes about 5 months from the first conversation to do the artwork and product development, have a sample made, and then order the production and have it shipped to us from the factory.

We have been in the Advertising Specialty industry for many years. When a company orders an ornament from us one time, they usually get one over and over again. Several of our customers have bought ornaments each Christmas since 1980. I think that's a good recommendation!

You can have your very own design, with your name or company name hand inscribed on it, and the year, for a very reasonalble price. Check out our new pages on our website by going to www.calliopedesigns.com and clicking on the link called Custom Designed Ornaments where there is a picture of The Greenbrier Inn's Gingerbread Ball ornament for 2006!