Pulp Faction

Monday, June 15, 2009

Follow Our Paper Trail on Twitter


Come follow our paper trail on Twitter. We'll keep you updated and make special very limited time offers.

Happy Tweeting!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

See Envelope Printing Made Easy in about 2 Minutes

It's easy to choose from more than 70 top envelope brand names and print your envelope in 1 and 2 color printing.


video

To see this short 2 minute video in a larger format go to The Paper Mill Store

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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Printable Door Hangers..now more than ever


Now more than ever the advantage of buying paper products in the quantities you need to fulfill your projects without buying too much is an important business strategy. Targeted marketing and thoughtful campaigns can pay big results.

Printable door hangers, pre-cut and ready to carry your message door to door. Many companies use door hangers to promote their services and products. You'll often see real estate companies, pizza parlors and lawn care companies employing the advantage of placing a well crafted message on to a convenient door hanger and marketing to a focused audience neighborhood by neighborhood.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Mohawk buys Smart Paper uncoated brands and licensed coated papers

Early today Mohawk Fine Paper announced that it had purchased all of the uncoated brands of paper produced by Smart Papers. As well, Mohawk has licensed Smart's coated papers, Kromekote and Knightkote for worldwide distribution into paper merchant and graphic design markets.

What does this mean?

This is big news for the paper industry and big news for the print and graphic design industry. This means that what were the last four largest paper mills for fine paper in North America are now only three. Smart Paper along with Wausau Paper represented the last two medium quality paper mills. While Neenah Paper and Mohawk represented the last two "major" premium paper mill (note: other small high quality mills still are in production). Today Mohawk stands alone representing paper production from medium to premium quality paper.

Buy Mohawk Fine Paper and formely Smart paper and envelopes

You can purchase every single Mohwak Fine Paper product with matching envelopes on thepapermillstore.com. Most of Smart Paper's product are also on The Paper Mill Store and shortly all Smart Paper products will be available for purchase online at The Paper Mill Store.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Outstanding stewardship in Germany

I recently had the opportunity to visit with my friends and longtime suppliers at Papierfabrik Schoellershammer of Duren, Germany. I first visited Schoellershammer back in 1989 when I founded CTI Paper Group.

Many things about this unique company were interesting from my first meeting and continue to be interesting now 20 years later. The company was founded in 1784 by the Schoeller family which is still managing the company today. I think it is now the 7th generation of the family involved in the business.

As has become a tradition of old friends I had the pleasure of having a dinner in a medieval castle with the current elder of the family Heinrich August Schoeller. Mr. Schoeller is a charming gentleman with a nice sense of humor and more energy than I have today at age 50.

The picture above is of the paper mill's power plant and of it's recycling fiber it stores in the mill's yard. I forget the exact tonnage numbers but the Schoellershammer paper mill recycles something around 500 metric tons of cardboard boxes per day. The mill uses this recovered fiber to produce a 100% post consumer waste liner material for the manufacture of corrugated boxes.

The mill has several eco initiatives that are significant. One is it's water cleaning plant. The mill returns the water it takes from the Rur river (a small trout river) cleaner than when it took it, in almost drinking water quality. Lastly perhaps the most impressive initiative is it's power plant shown below. The plant burns coal taken from local mines and burns it in a clean manner. In fact the mill exceeds the local clean air ordinances by almost twice the required cleansing of emissions. As proof of these efforts you can stand by the power plant and look up at the chimeny which emits not smoke!! Here's a photo of the power plant at full tilt, producing most of the energy used by the mill without producing any visible smoke. Truly amazing.

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Sunday, December 21, 2008

See How to Emboss Paper and watch two short videos

I had the opportunity the other day to partake in a trial of a new paper grade we're developing. We're making some interesting embossed papers. Not that embossing itself is so unique but we're taking one of our grades of paper and creating a new embossed version of the line. I'm really excited about it and we'll show this to the market shortly.

Here are the steps in the embossing process

Embossing paper starts with a roll of paper. You can technically emboss paper from sheets but it is not a practical option for commercial quantities of embossed paper. Each of these rolls weighs about 1,100 lbs. This was just a trial run so we only had a few rolls on hand to make sure we could achieve the effect we wanted. We did!!

The embossing equipment we used is very old. In fact most of the embossing equipment I've seen around the world is old. The technology is pretty simple and therefore the process doesn't change much as the years go on. Basically you apply pressure on the paper's surface by squeezing the paper between two embossing rolls. One of these embossing rolls has a pattern on it. This pattern will be impressed into the surface of the paper.

To check the quality of the embossed pattern you cut two small half circles of paper from opposite edges of the roll as the paper comes out of the embossing roll compression point. This is a visual check and you make sure that the depth of the pattern is equal across the web of the roll.

Paper being hand inspected for proper emboss pattern















Paper on the inbound side of the embosser

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Paper on the outbound side of the embosser

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

New Business Card Collections by Paper Grade

We just launched a new collection of papers perfect for creating business cards. We've organized the collection by paper grade to make it easy for you to find the perfect paper type for your business card projects.

All papers in the collections are bulk packed and sold at wholesale prices in quantities as small as a single ream or 250 sheet package.


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Thursday, December 4, 2008

Free Shipping on all Envelope Printing Orders


We're happy to announce that we now provide free shipping via UPS or FedEx ground services on all envelope printing orders. What we offer is the ability to print on more than 70 brands of envelopes and literally 1,000's of color, weight and size choices using 1 or 2 colors while using environmentally sensitive soy inks. All this and free shipping too.

Give us a try for your next envelope printing job.

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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Envelope Printing Made Easy...

A new update on The Paper Mill Store allows you to place envelope printing orders for any of our more than 70 different envelope brands. Within our offering of brands we have literally thousands of options in colors, weights, sizes, styles and paper finishes.

Now you can simply upload your artwork, check your pricing and place your order, all on one page. Even better all envelope printing orders get FREE SHIPPING ground service.

Eco Printing

We use Soy Inks to better protect the environment. Soy inks use the oils from soy products to replace the use of petroleum based oils. Petroleum based oils are fossil fuel based chemicals and add to the use of foreign oils. Printing with soy ink is an easy step to take to lessen the environmental impact of your printing job. We can supply our exclusive Soy Ink logo to be printed on your envelope to let folks know you have chosen to use printing with soy inks.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Deckled Edge in large sheets

Deckled Edge paper was once accomplished by a hand made process. In early papermaking a deckle was produced by tearing the edge from the paper sheet that made in a mold, known as mold made paper. The tear was made while the paper was still wet. In more recent processes of creating a deckle on mold made paper the deckle is created by applying a tape to the edge of the still wet paper sheet and tearing it off. The effect of the tearing is a beautiful feathered edge known as a deckle.

In modern papermaking the deckle is created on machine with a water knife which spays a thin jet of water at a low angle into the web of newly made paper while it is still on the wet-end of the paper machine. As background the wet end of the machine is where the paper still has about 98% water content. When paper gets to the end of the machine it is approximately 5% water by content. Here you can see a paper machine making recycled paper during my visit to Neenah Paper's Appleton paper mill.

The image inset above is Mohawk Fine Paper's Ultra Felt which comes in 80 lb text and 80 lb & 100 lb cover weights in 6 colors including a gorgeous black. You can make some really great projects with deckled edge paper. Ultra Felt also comes in envelopes showing the deckled edge along the envelope flap.

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Pantone Giant Rebate Offer **$100**

This is a really great and rare offer from our friends at Pantone. Pantone, one of the outstanding worldwide brands, is offering a $100 rebate when you purchase $499 of Pantone products between October 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.

When you visit our official Pantone Store you'll find not just great deals and special offers but we provide helpful detail on the ins and outs of Pantone products. The details for getting your $100 rebate are simple. Download the Pantone / The Paper Mill Store $100 rebate form and return it to the address provided on the form with your Pantone purchase receipts from The Paper Mill Store.

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Presentation Folders in 12 colors

We're happy to announce our newest product addition of Paper Store 24/7 Presentation Folders. Our 2 pocket folders come in a sturdy 80 lb cover stock in 12 colors made with high quality dyes providing rich full colors. The presentation folders are well made with a clean sharp score creating a perfect hinge for easy opening and closing of the folder. The two pockets are strongly glued and the edges are cleanly cut through the beefy 80 lb cover. You'll enjoy the interior business card slot accommodating most business card sizes.

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Resume Paper & Resume Kits like never before...

It's Eco. It's stylish. It's Resume paper like never before. Seeing that a really great offering of resume paper has not been on the market previously we decided to build, what we hope to be just the beginning of, what will be the largest and most eco-friendly resume paper combined into affordable resume kits.

We chose to offer Strathmore Pure Cotton 100% cotton resume paper, Strathmore Writing 25% cotton resume paper and Via Linen 30% recycled resume paper as the foundation of our resume kit collection. What got me really excited about these papers is the overall quality.

The Strathmore cotton papers are outstanding and have prestigious watermarks that make a statement about the professional quality of the resumes printed on this paper.

Email is easy. You can shoot off a 1,000 resumes without customization and guess what, not much response. The thought process and presentation strategy that is enhanced by using a paper resume is unsurpassed by the results achieved by the job seeker when using a paper resume as an integral part of the job seeking process.

Additionally we added Via Linen which is perhaps the most widely recognized linen paper for it's consistent linen pattern quality which is bold a provides an extraordinary tactile experience when held in your hand.


We're proud to offer six options in our new resume paper offering. We offer Strathmore 100% cotton, Strathmore 25% cotton and Via Linen for the perfect choices in resume paper on any budget.

Writing a resume is not only about the paper. The substance of the content and presentation of your resume is very important. We provide you with tools to help create the most effective resume. Do you need free resume templates? Do you need advise on how to construct your resume? We can help you because we've done the work for you and provide you with expert guidance and professional tools.

Our resume paper kits are made from tree free papers, carbon neutral papers, recycled papers and paper made using wind energy. Don't forget that all the carbon produced by our outbound shipments are offset with carbon credits.

When you need the competitive advantage to get the best job you can a paper resume will give you the edge you need. Here are some thoughts as to why you need a paper resume.

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Friday, October 31, 2008

DT Cover Stock - Meaty, Beefy, Big & Bulky

New DT cover stocks from 120 lb to 200 lb cover make up our newest expansion of products on The Paper Mill Store. We've now got more than 30 colors in extra heavy weight paper. We've various surfaces and DT cover stock brands from; Monadnock, Mohawk & Finch Paper. Some of this heavy weight paper is really cool and feels almost like a building material it's so thick and heavy.

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Beckett is available like never before & FSC, Wind Power, Carbon Neutral and Recycled


Just yesterday we posted over 1,000 new Mohawk Fine Papers Beckett items to our site. We have another 300 plus Beckett items to add and this will take place in the next day or two. Frankly we had a few issues with our photography that prevented the full upload from taking place. Those of you that follow this blog and visit thepapermillstore.com know that extraordinary micro photography is a hallmark of the way we display our paper and envelopes. We know its important to get a bug's eye view of the paper's surface to be able to understand how these papers willbest work for your projects. No surprises, what you see is what you get.

Back to Beckett. We now have all Beckett items up on our site in all sheet sizes, including the various Duplex sheets in Beckett Cambric and Beckett Ridge. For those of you who are not familiar with Beckett let me take a few moments to raise your interest so that you'll want to explore this extraordinary line of paper and envelopes. Beckett follows , or leads, the way as one of Mohawk's environmental premium papers with a strong environmental commitment. The line has options for Forest Stewardship Council paper, paper made using wind power, paper made in a carbon neutral manner utilizing offsets and many recycled paper options offering from 30% to 100% post consumer waste.

OK so now you know you can feel good about Beckett. You can also look good with Beckett and rely on its outstanding press preformance on every project. You will enjoy designing with the various Beckett extensions representing different surface structures and color palettes. One of my presonal favorites in the Cambric collection. Cambric offers a sublime surface structure akin to the fine weave of a cambric shirt. You can see the detail of the surface >.

Take a look at Beckett Expression, Beckett Enhance, Beckett Cambric & Beckett Ridge. It's also important to know that we have every single standard Beckett envelope available as well. You can order envelopes to match the Beckett paper you purchase or you can buy envelopes alone. We sell all of the Beckett paper and envelopes in the smallest packing quantity, for envelopes as little as 250 and for paper 250 to 500 sheets of 8.5 x 11.

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Monday, October 20, 2008

Halloween Paper

When the leaves fall from the trees and cool October breezes blow, all good ghosts and goblins gather to celebrate the magic of Halloween. Choosing the right paper colors for your Halloween cards and crafts is easy when you use our exclusive Halloween color collections.


Check out this and other seasonal paper color collections created by our own Design Team.

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Saturday, October 18, 2008

Fantastic Fine Stationery options

We've been having a great time putting together our new fine stationery collections. What's been great is our ability to find really great looking fine stationery papers with a lot of eco-friendly attributes.
This collection of fine stationery papers gives the user the ability to find exactly the type and style of stationery they are looking to use while supporting various eco initiatives. This line truly proves that you don't have to sacrifice quality to support eco-friendly papers. Its simply a matter of understanding your options and making an informed choice.

We've chosen papers from the leading eco-freindly paper mills including, Neenah Paper, Mohawk Fine Papers, Smart Papers, Wausau Paper and Monadnock Paper Mills. What also makes this collection different is that we offer the ability to buy a la carte depending on your needs. You can purchase 8.5 x 11 packs of stationery, matching envelopes and mathcing cover stock for business cards. As well, we offer the option to have the card stock perforated so that you can print your own business cards on a desktop printer in the numbers you need when you need them.

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

1600 More Ways to be Great...


That's the number of new Mohawk Via items we just added to our store. We increased our offering to include every sku Mohawk produces in this line of papers and we added all the standard envelope sizes for each Via paper.

What Makes Via so Special?

Its got Eco sense and a sense of style. It's Eco sense is that Mohawk makes this paper using 100% wind power and offsets 100% of the carbon footprint created when making this paper. Mohawk has a very large offset project where the build facilities to capture Add to this options for recycled 30% to 100% post consumer waste and an offering of items which are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified to use tree fiber coming from well managed forests. At The Paper Mill Store we maintain the Chain of Custody important to FSC and we as well use 100% wind power and offset 100% of the carbon produced by our outbound shipments through the Carbon Fund.

Via and its sense of style is remarkable. Via combines a stunning color palette with six distinct finishes and 25% cotton. The finishes are Felt, Laid, Linen, Vellum, Satin & Smooth. On top of all this Via provides a unique offering of Digital Papers in the Felt, Linen and Satin finishes. The digital papers a made with Mohawk's exclusive iTone surface treatment which makes the paper perfect for NexPress and iGen3 presses.

Visit Via on thepapermillstore.com and use our easy roll over zoom function to get a really close-up view of these great papers.

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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Business Case for Sustainability

I'd like to introduce those of you who are not familiar with "The Business Case for Sustainability" to its author, Bob Willard. Bob's take on sustainable business practices is extremely refreshing. Not speaking for Bob but from my perspective I summarize his presentation as one showing the upside of the economics for running your company in a sustainable manner. Bob addresses Wall Streets take on green companies.


Bob Willard

What's great about this approach is that it gets two divergent camps of people working together towards the goal of cleaner and greener business practices. Bob's clear and plain spoken presentation is stunning in its simplicity and laser guided in his approach. He teaches you how you can make your own economic based case for sustainable business practices.

Be sure to visit Bob's site and watch his trailer video as it will give you a very clear overview of hiw process and how he thinks about sustainable business.

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Monday, October 6, 2008

Buy 100% recycled shipping boxes online


I am very happy to announce that we have finally, after many many months put together a program to sell 100% recycled shipping boxes together. You can now come to our web site and place an order online for same day shipping of custom box sixes. That's right and I'll say it again, same day shipping on custom box sizes. All boxes are made to order.

100% recycled with 35% to 95% post consumer waste

Not only can we offer custom sizes in high recycled content boxes but we can offer printing on the boxes as well. We have partnered with a great company in Minneapolis, Custom Carton. These are very nice folks that know what their doing when it comes to making shipping boxes. I personally toured their plant earlier this summer. I was very impressed and now these 100% recycled shipping boxes are a part of The Paper Mill Store eco-offering.

Various box styles available

High quality color printing


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