Blog

We are excited to launch a new product meant for anyone who wants to make a gift card or small present more personal—custom mini gift bags! Our new gift bags, the perfect size for gift cards, small presents or trinkets, can be customized with text (names, dates, or whatever you can think up!) and with photos.

You can order as few as one bag or as many as you want! The low price point for just one bag makes this a no-brainer. The process is easy—upload a photo or choose your background, add your message, see a preview, and order. And the custom mini gift bag usually ships in 2-3 business days, so you don’t even need to have planned this far in advance.

We imagine top uses for the mini gift bags will be:

• Add a personal touch to a gift card for birthdays, holidays, and more. Add a personal message, a favorite quote, a photo of you or the recipient—whatever you can think up can be done super easily.
• Order birthday party favors for a special kid or a milestone event. Use a funny picture, a personal message or enhance a party theme.
• Order custom gift bag wedding favors. Add a photo of the couple, the date, and fill it with any small favor—candy, a favorite treat, and more.
• Use as a gift and save as a Christmas ornament. The small size and loop handle even make them perfect to use as Christmas tree ornaments!

Our custom mini gift bags are available now at PJGreetings.com. Order yours today!

On August 28, 2017, Empowered Poor will be hosting their annual Changing Lives golf outing. Empowered Poor is a nonprofit based in Huntley, Illinois, dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty among the underprivileged and marginalized in India and South Asia. They do this by making economic opportunities available to individuals, thereby building strong and stable communities.

On August 28, the golf outing at Whisper Creek Golf Course in Huntley, Illinois, will raise funds for the cause. For the past 5 years, we’ve supposed the case by donating custom gift bags for the event. The golf outing also includes a dinner and program at the Drendel Ballroom located at the Clubhouse & Recreation Center at the Del Webb Community.

We were made aware of the event by our long time customer, who runs the event. We are always happy to help our customers and to see our products used for a good cause.

Learn more about Empowered Poor.

We love our custom printed gift bags and tissue paper, and we can gush about it all day. But it’s our product, so of course we love it, right? But now you don’t have to take it from us. It’s such a huge honor to hear Sabine Lenz, the Paper Queen of PaperSpecs gush about it. She has a penchant for paper, and has built a career off of celebrating it. And PaperSpecs is a magazine dedicated to the power and poignancy of print design. So her high compliments are such a treat!

She raves about the customization, the paper options, and our favorite is when she waxes poetic about the experience of having one of these bags: “While both custom-printed tissue paper and bags are eye-catching, it is the pairing of these that truly make for an unforgettable experience. From the look and feel of the complete package to the crinkling sound of the tissue paper between your fingers, nearly every sense is engaged.” What a great, vivid description!

We love especially that as she walked around the How Design conference with one of our bags, everyone wanted to know what she had. She says they approached her with one thought in mind: “this is the perfect giveaway for events without having to invest in huge print runs.”

Read the full article

Order your Custom Gift Bag today!

We love our custom tissue paper customers, since we know that they love to make things special! And what could be more special than a couple’s big day? Digiwrap Customer Live Love Party Designs recently put together an awesome wedding invitation using custom tissue paper for their clients who were having an incredible destination wedding. We sat down with Noreen and Melisa, the mother/daughter team behind Live Love Party Designs, to get a feel for who they are, why they are passionate about their work, and how they have elevated the wedding invitation to such an awesome level.

Who are your typical clients?

Our most typical clients are brides and grooms who are looking for custom invitations that are uniquely personal and reflective of their own tastes. We strive to work with clients who want to set the tone for their wedding with their invitations, and not only invite their guests but also excite them. We also work with mothers and fathers who are throwing birthday parties, communions, and bridal/baby showers for their children. Our clients usually cannot find what they want online so they come to us with a vision, and we make that come to life. And of course we serve those clients who are not sure what they want and ask us to create a vision for them. We even work with corporate clients like Dylans Candy Bar, in which we provide digital invitations for all of their parties in their NYC, Miami, and Chicago locations.

What are your favorite projects to do for clients?

Our favorite projects to do with clients are those that make us think outside the box. We love to creatively come up with ways to uniquely cater to each of our client’s interests and needs. We love projects with embelishments and lots of detail as those always seem to stand out the most.

Why are you passionate about your work?

We are passionate about our work because we are creating stationery that symbolizes a monumental moment in our clients lives. When we design and deliver invitations to our clients, we see their excitement. Invitations truly begin the process for an event, and we are so happy to be able to bring that joy to our clients.

What inspires you when you are designing something new?

When designing and creating, we love to really cater to our clients’ needs. Getting to know the mood of their event can really help. We look for inspiration by looking at pictures of their venue, their choice of decor, and the color scheme, of course. We keep on top of trends, but only incorporate those that are in line with our clients’ style. What's it like to work as a mother/daughter team?

Working as a mother/daughter team is much easier than some may think. We can take each of our strengths (and weaknesses) to work better together and for our clients. We can support one another in different ways than most can and can openly communicate without there being any barriers.

What do you do for fun?

Noreen, the mom of the duo, enjoys hiking and biking. She also enjoys all kinds of crafts, sewing, and refinishing furniture. Making Halloween costumes for her three-year-old grandson is especially rewarding. And she loves just spending time with him. She is hoping he will be old enough to want to go camping soon.

Melisa, the daughter of the duo, enjoys spending time with her husband and their three-year-old son, along with their family and friends. She also enjoys crafting at all hours of the day and night—simple things like creating tablescapes for her Thanksgiving dinner and planning her son’s birthday parties a year in advance. :) When time allows it, she also enjoys reading and doing projects around her house.

Learn more about Live Love Party Designs.

As a part of the gift wrap industry, we understand celebration. And as a custom gift wrap company, we understand that some things are worth such a high level of celebration that wrapping you can buy at any old store just won’t do. Gift wrap customer Nikki turned to Digiwrap when she was about to attend the ultimate family party—a celebration of life for her Great Uncle Keag, who had passed away recently, and an 80th birthday party for his wife, Great Aunt Helen.

Nikki says her Great Aunt Helen is a total character. Throughout the party, she cracked everyone up, as usual. To Nikki, she said, “You know, I am recently single if you have any friends you can introduce me to." In fact, the picture Nikki picked for the personalized tissue paper is this one—which Nikki says is a common theme in her photos of Great Aunt Helen:

Great Uncle Keag was a character as well. During his celebration of life, most of the crowd was surprised to find out that he was a stunt driver Dan Keenors Hurricane Hell Drivers In the late 60s and early 70s. At the ceremony, his sister-in-law told the crowd, ”He along with the other stunt drivers thrilled fair audiences around America by doing their precision driving, driving through fire, and standing on top of cars while they were being driven through fire. They would jump their cars over 5 or six other cars, roll their cars to come out unscathed. They were billed as America's first crash dummies." Of course this fun family would come from that kind of stock.

At the celebration of life, Great Uncle Keag was remembered well with some funny stories and some tears.

Then the family moved to the church gathering room for Great Aunt Helen’s 80th birthday celebration. They say with gifts that “it’s the thought that counts,” and if that’s true, nothing says you thought about it more than wrapping with a personal photo, name, or quote. Take a look at the gift wrap below—it doesn’t matter what is inside these gifts. Throughout the party, when anyone passed the table, they stopped and admired.

When Great Aunt Helen opened her gifts, she was so gentle with the tissue paper and bag—she wanted to save every piece of it. Then she looked closer and realized that the tissue paper had the picture of her flipping people off. She said, "Oh no, you are going to show this picture of me? This is so bad, we are in church!" Nikki laughed and said, "Aunt Helen, I have heard you swear at least twelve times today in this church." After they laughed together, Nikki added, “Besides this is my favorite flip-off picture of you and there are a lot to choose from."

Great Aunt Helen thought the custom gift wrap was so special that she plans to frame the extra pieces. Happy Birthday, Great Aunt Helen! We are glad you had such a great celebration of life for Great Uncle Keag and partied well for your 80th trip around the sun!

Do you have a Great Aunt Helen in your life? Are you interested in custom gift bags? We make all custom gift bags available on Zazzle. Order yours today

How about custom tissue paper? Check out our selection of easily customizable tissue paper.

We are obsessed with one of our latest custom tissue paper customers: Badass Backpacks! Their company embodies the perfect combination of art, thoughtful design, and passion for their work. And one of our favorite things—they have a crystal clear vision for how their product should look when it gets into the hands of their customers. They have decided custom tissue paper is an important step in the completed product. We spoke with Adam Lemmon, owner, about his fascinating company, his inspiration, and his life outside of badass backpacks!

Why did you decide to start Badass Backpacks?

I had this one backpack (it was an Italian made Invicta backpack) that I used all over the world. That backpack was bright, loud, and beautiful, and people would come up to me all the time to ask me about my bag. I met some of the coolest people in my life via conversations started about my backpack. So that got me started on the whole thing. I decided that I wanted to create beautiful backpacks that are designed to start conversations.

Why are you passionate about art? And why backpacks?

I love this question. For Badass Backpacks, I think about both art and backpacks at the same time.  It’s actually where our logo comes from. Our logo tiles are the same size.

Sometimes it looks like one is bigger than the other. But that’s just an optical illusion. Switch them to the other side, and now the other one appears to be bigger. And so it goes with Badass Backpacks— we need both happening at the same time.

My passion for art was initially inspired by my first art teacher, Cheryl Hicks. In her classes we learned to level up our capacity to create, by learning how to observe, listen, and see. Intoxicated by the possibilities of art, I was hooked.

As for backpacks, the short answer is that I’ve always loved backpacks because they are beautiful and mysterious. They make me smile. And that’s probably enough. Longer answer: I am obsessed with backpacks because they are never complete on their own; what’s inside a backpack is always changing. An accessory that’s a companion, waiting for you to put yourself inside and to go an adventure. Maybe it’s a small journey. Maybe it’s an epic journey. But a backpack is the perfect vessel to you help you carry your things. When you want to know about the journey that a traveler is on, you can ask them what’s in their backpack, and you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know.  Sometimes we share openly what we are carrying in our backpacks. Sometimes we don’t dare share what we are carrying with us. I love looking down a crowded sidewalk and seeing lots of people walking with their backpacks. It’s mysterious. What journey are they on? What have they chosen to put in their bags?

How do you decide which art and themes to feature?

Rusty Kocian, co-founder of Badass Backpacks, leads our creative process for exploring art, artists, and project themes. At the beginning, we overwhelmed ourselves with beautiful lists of possibilities— the number of themes to explore became endless. To help us focus and right size our signal-to-noise ratio, Rusty created a process that we use at our weekly creative sessions. That process facilitates conversations and discovery centered on 6 things: Art, Theme, Story, Gift, Tribe, and Movement. We want these 6 things to go into the design and creation of the bag, and we want the bag that we create to generate these 6 things.

Why is presentation in your packaging important?

Packaging gives our bags an extra touch, and we absolutely consider it to be important. Many people who buy our bags are buying them as a gift, and so when it arrives, we want the person opening it to feel special. We also want them to pause, even if just for a moment. We want our packaging to grab their attention. “Wait!”, the packaging screams—this might be important. We want the experience of owning and using a Badass Backpack to give the wearer some comfort in asking big questions—big questions about the world, and big questions about their own journey. Intentional and beautiful packaging is the start of that journey, and in such a fast-paced world that we live in, we want our packaging to slow down the person opening it.

Do you have a success tip for other new business startups or makers?

Yes. The following advice is derived from a Seth Godin open Q&A session that I attended years ago.  It’s advice that helped me greatly: Go buy a notebook, or grab some scratch paper, and go to a cafe (best if it’s a cafe you don’t normally go to), and sit down with a blank page, and write down what you’re scared of. Ask yourself sincerely, and explore closely: “What am I scared of?” Now then, if you are a human being, it is very likely that 10 minutes or less into this exercise, you have already gotten distracted and drifted off, the mind procrastinating. When you catch yourself drifting off, come right back to the notes you started, and now ask yourself this question again. What am I really scared of, right now? But…answer for real this time. Spend time coming to understand the challenges, the unknowns, and the hardest parts of what you are about to do. Fear. Explore it closely for as much time as you can, and be honest with yourself. When you are done, look at your page. You now have an important list in front of you. What are you going to do about it? (source: Seth Godin)

About Adam Lemmon:

At rest and at ease Adam is an impassioned modern impresario, weaving together resources and opportunities to put on a show. During his 15-year career in the world of SaaS platforms, he delivered training sessions and strategic consulting dotted with observations, insights, and metaphors that always left his clients wanting more. Improvisational theater, artistic self-expression, and a pension for making anything and everything more interesting all fuel Adam’s need to march to his own drum. As the owner and founder of Badass Backpacks, Adam is striving to connect the dots between creating beauty and creating life-changing experiences for our customers and the world of which we are all a part. You’ll find him at the many cafes that dot the map of Austin, TX, where he lives, loves, works, and plays with his family. Adam and his wife, Nancy Lemmon, are learning and growing with their 3 children, Hudson, Phoenix, and Alejandra.

______________

About Badass Backpacks, LLC:

Badass Backpacks is a collaborative art project dedicated to self expression and creating connection through conversations. We make art-inspired bags that are ready for adventure. Badass Backpacks believes that your backpack can be more than just a backpack.  We believe that it can be expressive and thought provoking. We believe that it can be a companion on your journey; that it can remind you to ask big questions, and it can remind you to put yourself inside each step of the way.

We seek to build bridges—connected experiences and products worthy of starting a conversation—helping our community find more ways to tell their stories. And giving them a bag for that journey. We are based in Austin, TX, and all of our bags are crafted with love, made right here in the USA.

Contact info for Adam Lemmon: adam@badassbackpacks.com badassbackpacks.com, Blog, LinkedIn.

Earlier this year, we were honored to be asked to speak at two of the countries top conventions for print and design: DScoop, held in Phoenix, and How Design Live in Chicago. Scoop is an experiential and fast-paced conference for those in the digital printing and graphics industry. How Design Live is one of the largest annual gatherings of creative professionals in the world. At both events, we got to speak about our innovative products, our marketing and creative process, and our recent exciting adventure on ABC’s Shark Tank.

During the DScoop presentation, we showed our ABC Shark Tank clip as well as a personalized message from our favorite Shark, Kevin O’Leary. In his clip, O’Leary said Digiwrap “exemplifies the innovation happening in the printing industry.” Thank you for your kind words, Kevin!

Here are a few photos from our presentation:

We also were fortunate at that event to win an Inkspiration Award for our fully custom gift bag!

At How Design Live, we joined Sabine Lenz, the founder of PaperSpecs.com to talk about hot print designs and trends. At our booth, we welcomed visitors and even vendors to design their own personalized bag on the spot in just minutes. We were able to print and produce our visitors’ creations for pick up during the event! As you can see, visitors took their bags in many different directions and had a lot of fun doing so!

Interested in personalizing your own fully custom gift bag? Order one today!

We love our custom tissue paper customers, since we know that they agree with us about one essential truth: packaging and presentation are important! Often makers have a vision for how their product could look when it gets into the hands of their customers, and they need custom packaging to bring their vision to life. We love to help makers to retain their special, handmade feel by creating custom tissue paper for their packaging. Digiwrap Customer PocketJo wanted to wrap her beautiful aerial-themed jewelry with love, so she chose a repeat logo pattern for her tissue paper packaging. It turned out great!

After exploring her model-made jewelry site, we fell in love with her story and product. She is “PocketJo” because her model-making course at University had three Jos. To distinguish her from the other Jos, they called her “Pocket Jo” because she’s so small and cute you could put her in your pocket. She makes jewelry based on her other unique love—circus! Learn more about her shop below.

Why did you choose aerial acrobatics as your main subject matter?

It's a beautiful art form, and I couldn't find very many places offering accessories related to it so I thought I could try and create some pieces and see what happened.

How did you get into jewelry and model making?

I have a BA(Hons) in Model Making from UCA. I have enjoyed making things from an early age and had the bonus of having a very creative Grandmother who let me make a mess on her kitchen table.

Why are you passionate about your shop?

It's something I've built myself and I have already learned so much in the short time its been up and running. I hope to keep improving it and make something that can supply people with lovely gifts and special, unique things for themselves.

What inspires you when you are designing something new?

I love contrasting shapes, colors, and textures and try to use more than one material in each design that compliments the other. I also love to capture the energy of motion and movement.

Why is presentation in your packaging important?

I want every purchase to be exciting and to make every customer feel special. I want them to know and to feel that care and attention has gone into each and every order.

Do you have a success tip for other makers?

Make what you enjoy—it will come through in your work and it will never be wasted time.

What do you do for fun?

I have started classes in aerial silks over the last few months which gives me even greater respect for the professionals!

We are pleased to be a part of How Design Live at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago this week! HOW Design Live is one of the largest annual gatherings of creative professionals in the world. The educational sessions are meant to change your thinking, improve and build your business, and hone your marketing skills. We will join Sabine Lenz from Paperspecs to talk about our product and sharing a little of our story from Shark Tank.

What: HOW Design Live Presentation with Sabine Lenz from Paperspecs
Title: The 5 Hottest Print Design Trends of 2017
When: Thursday, May 4, 3:30-4:15 pm
Where: Hyatt Regency in Chicago, Regency B, Session Number THSESS15

Session Description: Each year a handful of printing and finishing developments set the design world on fire, transforming the way we present our work, spread our message, and even the way we think. At this session we will explore—with our eyes and our hands—2017’s hottest print design trends, including one technology featured on ABC’s “Shark Tank” that has the likes of Google, LinkedIn, and BMW very excited indeed.

Sabine Lenz is the founder of PaperSpecs.com, THE online source for paper information, inspiration and insights, and PaperSpecs Magazine. A graphic designer with more than 20 years of experience working in the U.S., Germany and Australia, she writes frequently for several industry publications and is also a speaker on the subject of paper and related topics. Lovingly referred to as the “Paper Queen” by many of her followers, she combines a passion for paper with a hands-on approach to sharing her knowledge.

The HOW brand includes the award-winning design magazine, design competitions and online design courses, design books, and HOW Design Live. The mission of HOW is to serve business, creativity, and technology needs of graphic designers. Since fully custom gift bags and tissue paper is our business, Digiwrap loves designers! We proud to exhibit and be a part of the show!

Visit Digiwrap Wednesday, May 3 and Thursday, May 4 at Booth 711 near Wheels 4 Water and Entrance 1. And don’t miss our session with with Sabine Lenz! We look forward to seeing you there!

Digiwrap recently attended (and presented at!) DScoop, an experiential and fast-paced conference for those in the digital printing and graphics industry. While there, we decided to enter into their “Inkspiration” contest, where members submitted their most innovative and creative work to be reviewed by a judging panel of industry experts.

We were excited to submit, but when reviewing the categories, we had a hard time finding one to match up with our product and unique printing processes. We decided to submit a fully custom gift bag in a high resolution photography category. When we say the bag was fully custom, we mean it—everything was printed, including the bag, tissue paper, and ribbon handle.

The judges agreed that the fully custom gift bag didn’t fit a category, but they were excited to award us with something because they thought the product was superb. Later we learned that one of the judges was so enthusiastic about the quality of the product and printing, she said, “They just have to win, so they will win!” They ended up creating a “Judge’s Choice” category to recognize the product!

We are so honored to have won this award from experts in the industry!

We were asked by one of the judges to speak with her on stage at the “How Show” in Chicago on May 3 and 4. Stay tuned for more info on that event!

Check out our custom gift bags, available on Zazzle.

Join our eList for more Digiwrap news and product info!