New Leaf Paper Company

We're excited to announce that we now offer a broad array of New Leaf Paper Company eco-preferable papers. If you're not familiar with New Leaf Paper you will be very happy to learn more about them. Started in 1998 New Leaf Paper created a line of high quality printing papers with exceptional eco features. Most of the papers have very high recycled content and are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. The collection of papers range from uncoated to premium cast coated. Focusing on white and off-white papers you'll find papers with great quality that help you to make a statement and to make a difference in the sustainable choices you make when designing projects.

Below is a listing of the eco-preferable papers from New Leaf Paper.

Everest ® FSC & 100% Recycled Paper

Imagination ® FSC & 100% Recycled Writing, Text & Cover Paper

Primavera ® FSC & 60% Recycled Gloss Coated Paper

Primavera ® FSC & 60% Recycled Silk Coated Paper

Reincarnation ® FSC & 30% Recycled Cast Coated Paper

Reincarnation ® FSC & 50% Recycled Matte Coated Paper

Sakura ® 100% De-Inked Recycled Matte Coated Paper

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!

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.




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

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.

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.

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.

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

Paper on the outbound side of the embosser

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.

• White Uncoated Business Card Paper
• Colored Uncoated Business Card Paper
• Coated Business Card Paper
• Metallic Business Card Paper
• Textured Uncoated Business Card Paper
• Textured Coated Business Card Paper
• Translucent Business Card Paper
• Super Heavy Business Card Paper

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Get Going with Goe - More Colors, More Possibilities

I've spent this past weekend reviewing PANTONE's newest color matching system called, Goe System. I'm not sure of the origin of the name they've chosen. Maybe I'll get more clarity on that question later. What I do know is that this new color matching system is a big leap forward for the graphics arts community in the quest for accurate color matching and communication.

The least of it is its cool packaging. I expect stylish packaging in most everything these days and certainly in a product aimed at the graphics arts community. Its clean, its organized and it looks cool. OK on to the real benefits.

For starters the Goe System has 2,058 spot colors. That's almost twice the number of spot colors in the previous PANTONE system. What I really like about these colors is how they are chromatically arranged in a much more logical order than the previous system. I was speaking with the folks at PANTONE about Goe and I got an interesting insight into the development of Goe. Going back to the origin of the PANTONE Color Matching System, I was told that the PANTONE color palette was first developed in 1963 to represent "popular colors." Colors that local printers and designers were using at the time and therefore the basis for making the standardized color system. Over time colors were added more or less on a by market request basis.

Now moving forward to Goe. Goe is developed on a broader spectrum based palette. When you view a fan of the old PANTONE Colors and the Goe Colors next to each other you will immediately notice that the Goe colors are more closely chromatically arranged and therefore provide better or more suitable gradations of color within one color family. To the left you see the new Goe colors fanned out.

A significant improvement in number of and arrangement of colors is the basis for the new system. Beyond this PANTONE has built an accompanying Goe Guide and the new Goe Sticks. Goe Sticks are an improved version of PANTONE Color Chips. The Goe Sticks are self-adhesive backed postage stamp sized color chips with a couple of handy tool ad-ons. The myPANTONE palette playground is a plastic sheet built into the Goe Stick binder. With the palette playground the designer can built color palette combinations and see how they look together on one surface. The adhesive backed chips are repositionable so you can go back and forth adding a removing color chips with damaging the chips. They also provide palette cards. The palette cards are a tool to adhere chosen palettes to and share them within the work flow of your project or for client presentations, really during any situation where you want to communicate the palette visually.

Lastly PANTONE has created a great software program to compliment this system. The software is an entire blog post itself so I'm going to leave that for later. I give a resounding two thumbs up to PANTONE's latest efforts at improving color matching. I think every print shop and design studio should have this new system in-house. As of this writing we offer the coated and un-coated versions as a bundle for an eye-poppingly low $765. The folks at PANTONE are quick to say that the Goe System doesn't replace the older PANTONE Color Matching System. That could be true and there is a lot of benefit from the older system. However, Goe is great and do it all. Go out a get one.

Zoom function - A bug's eye view

We've been working very hard to create a paper buyer experience far superior to anything else you get a chance to try. A part of that experience is doing the best we can to make sure you get the exact paper you want. With the knowledge that all paper is not created equal and that paper surface varies significantly from grade to grade we've created a super zoom function to let you get your eyeballs right down onto the paper to see what it will look like when you're holding it fresh out of the box.

When you visit one of our product pages you will see a standard sized photo as depicted below. These are nice enough photos but at this size they still leave the viewer wondering what the real surface of the paper looks like.




Just one click of the image or on the "See Close-up Paper Surface" hyper link and POW...you are taken right down to the paper's surface.










This image below shows you just how close you can get to not only see the paper's surface but to really get a good understanding of how its looks and perhaps how it feels.
Zoom Image

ColorMates cardstock made with 100% wind power

Our sister company, WorldWin Papers, has recently begun manufacturing its flagship cardstock line ColorMates using 100% wind power through the purchase of wind power credits certified from Green-e. This is a very positive step forward as this is the only card stock line for the hobby and craft industry that has taken such a positive position using renewable energy sources.

We have now just redesigned the ColorMates page to show off these beautiful 144 colors all on one page making it "Easy" to find the perfect color for your project. ColorMates is the leading mono-chromatic line of smooth card stock used by scrapbookers and paper crafters throughout the world. Renowned for its flawlessly pigment dyed colors, its fabulous folding characteristics and precise clean cutting qualities unmatched by other card stocks.

Royal Linen offers an extraordinary paper with great eco-benefits

We're happy to have a huge offering of Wausau Paper's Royal Linen line of paper and envelopes. I think this is one of the best values in paper. Royal Linen, as the name implies, has a really beautiful linen pattern on the surface. This is something you normally have to pay a lot for in other premium papers.



Royal Linen is a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper. As if that's not enough the paper also uses 30% post consumer waste. I've written in past blogs about the benefits of recycled paper. Briefly, less land fill used, less energy used, less water used. As well I've talked about the importance of FSC paper. While FSC is important because it sets and monitors standards for FSC forests, ensuring the forests with the FSC certification are responsibily managed to best benefit the environment and the people living in the area of the forest. One of the unspoken benefits is the fact the FSC helps to keep well managed forest profitable. The importance of a profitable forest is that it remains forest and is less likely to fall victim to development. Nothing kills a forest faster than when it becomes a golf course or a huge housing development.

Its important to support manufacturers that make an honest effort to lessen their environmental impact. The offering of Royal Linen does exactly that and uses less natural resources and protects well managed forests through its use of FSC fiber. Not only that, but its a grea paper that looks fantastic and performs well on press and in desktop applications.

Green Office just got easier

We just it made it that much easier to green up your office and make your perforated paper projects go smoother and faster. You're going to enjoy our newest collection of Free Project Templates for perforated paper projects.

All of our perforated papers offer some type of Green Office eco-advantage. Our perforated papers offer recycled content, Forest Stewardship Council certified paper, wind power paper and carbon neutral papers, As well all of our perforated papers are perforated using 100% wind power and we offset 100% of the carbon produced when shipping from our Neenah Wisconsin warehouse to your door.

New Pantone Store

We're very happy to welcome our newest supplier Pantone to The Paper Mill Store. Pantone as you may know is the leader in color control and color communication. Given our volume and position in the market we're able to offer Pantone tools at very good prices and combine these prices with the top quality customer service our customers have come to expect from us.

Last day of HOW 2008

The final tally of designers attending the HOW Show 2008 was somewhere shy of 4,000. I think I spoke to half of you at our booth, The Paper Mill Store. What a blast we had!

I've been telling folks that HOW is my favorite trade show, period. The group of folks who attend are always interesting to talk with and for the most part in a great mood. The theme we heard again this year was ECO-Design and its growing importance with clients and of course with the design community.

I met up with my good friend Sabine Lenz during the final moments of the show. Sabine always has good insights into design and the design community. You should visit her site, PaperSpecs, where you can get great information on paper and design topics.

I had some great conversations on the topics surrounding paper and the environment. Its clear that most everyone is clamoring for accurate information on the subject. We gave out diskettes packed with good eco logo usage information.

HOW Show Monday 2008

One more day at the races. We had a great day meeting a lot of designers and others in the graphics professions. HOW is really doing a great job in providing meaningful seminars and brings designers from around the country and around the globe to the conference.

We just met a couple from Bozeman, MT working for Mercury Design. This is a great opportunity to speak with folks from all around and to get hear what people are finding important. Again this year more than last year ECO issues are the hot button. It seems as though everyone is getting it these days. Not only the need to examine your own eco-practice but also on how to make the case in general for sustainable design and sustainable business practices.
The doors were closed to the exhibit hall just before 8:00 am this morning and the crowd swelled to many hundreds of folks eager to get inside and see what the various vendors had to offer.

HOW Show 2008

We're here in Boston for the HOW Show 2008. A reported 3,600 attendees had pre-registered making this the best attended HOW show to date.

We arrived into Boston on Friday night to take advantage of the town for a few days prior to the show. We stayed in Cambridge and enjoyed the great restaurants and museums of Harvard Square and Kendall Square areas.

The Sunday arrived and we set up our trade show booth to prepare for the onslaught of graphic designers and others in related graphics fields. Lot's of great companies are here and lot's of free stuff for attendees. To kick off our new Pantone products we are giving away a free ColorMunki tool. ColorMunki is Pantone's newest device. This thing is really cool. You can capture color from any surface and bring this color into your graphics program. As an example you can capture the color of an insects abdomen and the color of a piece of fruit and bring this into your MAC files. These devices retails for $499, we're giving one away free. Stop by and get a chance to win a ColorMunki.

The First and Only FSC certified Self-adhesive labels

We have just added the newest innovation from a smart and progressive self-adhesive company, Pinnacle Label. Pinnacle label has created the first and only FSC certified self-adhesive labels. As well the labels are 100% recycled and fully recyclable. This is important in the world of labels because often the types of adhesives, glues, used to make the labels sticky are not recyclable. When the adhesives are not recyclable this can render any project using a non recyclable label to be non recyclable itself and have to added to a landfill after its life cycle is complete. You'll also be please to know the labels have acid free and certified Chlorine Free Process face stocks.

These labels are appropriately named RECYCLABLES. Recyclables are available in a bright white sheet in eight different address, shipping and mailing label formats. We really like these labels and we think you will too. They run in all desktop printers and are suitable for a variety of digital press engines as well. The president of the company, Ches Cochran, will provide a personally signed letter guaranteeing this. You can ask our customer service for a letter of you have any doubts. These labels are a great way to green up your office and your label projects. Please give these labels a try I know you'll like the way the perform in your printer.

Warehouse Sale in Neenah Wisconsin

We're having our second annual warehouse sale at our Neenah Wisconsin warehouse. The sale is on May 16 and May 17 at 2323 Venture Court in Neenah, WI 54956. We selling a huge variety of paper and envelopes suitable for printing jobs, marketing projects, paper crafting and scrapbooking. If you love paper and if you love great deals this is the once a year sale you should visit.

May 16th 8 AM to 8 PM
May 17th 8 AM to 4 PM

Here's a Google Map of directions showing the location of our warehouse.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sustainable Perforated Paper

I'm really happy to announce that we are now offering a collection of sustainable perforated papers. What's really exciting about this is that you can now use these forms to help move your office or business towards Green Office practices by using paper made using various environmentally sensitive manufacturing practices.
We not only offer recycled paper, FSC papers, Carbon Neutral Paper and paper made with Wind Power, but all the perforating we do is powered using 100% wind power.

We have 45 different perforated paper formats and a collection of 33 different specialty papers. Some of the papers are really cool for perforating like our Fluorescents Paper as an example. A lot of folks are using perforated paper to create their own raffle tickets, return receipt forms, church donation forms. Today with desk top printing so easy you can make your forms without too much hassle.

I like to hear form you if you have any ideas for uses for perforated paper or would just like to comment.

National Envelope to provide SFI Boxes

National Envelope takes another step forward in their efforts to use sustainable materials and to lessen their impact on the environment. As the largest privately owned envelope manufacturer National Envelope has repeatedly taken a leadership position on environmental matters.
Using their flagship proprietary envelope brand Williamhouse and its famous envelope box, National is now supplying Williamhouse envelopes in a Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) envelope box. As a proud distributor of Williamhouse envelopes The Paper Mill Store will begin shipping our envelopes within these new boxes in the coming weeks rotating our inventory on a rolling basis which means our faster moving items will be the first to utilize this newly designed envelopes box. While the design elements remain larger unchanged the Gold Tones of the box lid and the Williamhouse Envelopes logo use a gold toned color to distinguish the SFI box.

The Score...on Folding a Scored Paper

In earlier articles in our newsletters, Grain direction...the long and short of it , Scoring 101 we covered important topics related to folding paper but frankly we never got down to the brass tacks of the acutual folding action and how to do it.


The above image shows how you always fold away from the score channel. The score hinge created during the act of scoring works in the opposite direction that most folks intuitively think of when looking at a flat scored paper.

Early on in my paper career during a call to a Midwest printer I learned this important lesson from an old curmudgeon of a printer who enjoyed seeing me fold the paper in the incorrect direction. A little embarrassing but a good lesson about folding scored paper. This is nothing earth shaking but proper folding direction is extremely important.

WorldWin Papers joins TPMS

We're very excited that our sister company Worldwin Papers has joined forces with The Paper Mill Store to offer an improved and more diverse distribution system. WorldWin is a leader in the design, production and distribution of crafting and scrap booking papers.

WorldWin brings some truly unique and exciting papers to The Paper Mill Store. The WorldWin papers are visually exciting and fabulous to the touch. We now have what might be the largest in-stock inventory of crafting papers available for immediate shipment.

As a retail store owner or as an individual crafter you can find just what you need on on our site. From translucent vellums to heavy cardstock with textures and more than 200 colors, WorldWin offers a lot.

We offer paper racking systems as well. A retailer can come to us and not only purchase best selling paper items but we can offer same day shipping on a number of in-store paper racking systems that will enhance their product presentation.

Big Beefy Cover Stock ...

Thicker and More Substantial cover stock is what we hear the market is searching for. We're happy to say that we now have what you need and when you need it. We can ship out today. We're stocking four grades of the heaviest cover paper on the market. I was blown away when I first saw this stuff. The 200 lb cover is practically like a building material. I swear this cover stock must have an R value for insulation qualities. You can use this paper for great business cards and other cards, to make really substantial folders or as a weapon for your next client meeting. Your call.

We thought it wasn't just good enough to just have a choice of brand name cover paper from 120 lb to 200 lb cover but we decided to make it available in cut size 8.5 x 11 as well so that you don't have to break the bank to get your hands on this luscious group of covers.

We took four well known brands, Astrolite, Finch Fine, Navajo and Strathmore in order to fully cover the range of cost effective and premium as well as having the most weights offered. As if that's not enought the Astrolite and the Strathmore covers are made carbon neutral. Strathmore even uses wind power to "blow you away" even more. Talk about "mean and green."

We achieved our Sustainable Forestry Initiative Certification

Just yesterday we received confirmation from the Sustainable Forestry Initiatve (SFI) that The Paper Mill Store has achieved the Chain of Custody certification. We are very happy to announce this newest step in our sustainable business model.

As of February 13, 2008, under our SFI number - NSF-SFICOC-6T721, we will begin building our offering of SFI papers and envelopes. SFI is particlularly interesting to those of us in the USA and Canada in that this initiative focuses on the unique issues facing North American forests. SFI is dedicated to helping to protect forests and to promote well managed forestry practices through certification and tracking of forest products.

More Carbon Reduction...

I am very proud to announce that our ongoing efforts to reduce energy usage and to reduce the amount of carbon our operations emit continues. During a recent survey of the equipment in our Paper Valley (Neenah Wisconsin) converting and distribution center we realized that we were using outdated and inefficient natural gas heaters in our outbound shipping area.

After some research by our plant Manager, Bruce Peterson, we concluded that we could substantially cut our energy usage and reduce our carbon output by purchasing new more efficient heating equipment. This is especially important this year as we've been having a traditional Wisconsin winter with many days and nights well below zero degrees.

Our full payback for the heating equipment is just about 3 years. Our best estimate is that we will reduce our carbon output by 9,503 lbs per year.

Eco training at The Paper Mill Store

We have just completed our 2008 sales meeting, bringing in our folks from around the country from our sister company CTI Paper USA. As both companies, CTI Paper USA and The Paper Mill Store have increased our mutual commitments to sustainable design and business practices we had the opportunity to share ideas and communicate some of our newest initiatives over the last two days.

As a group we just completed our Safe Forestry Initiative (SFI) audit this past Friday. So we hope to have our SFI Chain of Custody certificate in the coming weeks. Part of SFI and FSC for that matter require that we educate all of our employees on these processes and that everyone have a good understanding of the benefits and procedures.

The group developed a new paper as an addition to Aspire Petallics, Aspire Petallics Pearl. A stunning sheet which is SFI certified and is manufactured Carbon Neutral through offsetting 100% of the carbon produced in its manufacture. As well, we now have recycled options in Aspire Petallics with 30% Post Consumer Waste (PCW) in our 98 lb cover Beargrass and all our 80 lb text weights except for Beargrass text.

Some of you may know that we have a paper crafting division in the company. Some new big eco initiatives will be announce from these folks during the upcoming CHA show. As the founder of the group I'm really pleased that our team has adopted these important eco initiatives with such enthusiasm and support.

Yellowstone...A Business Case for Sustainability

I had the great opportunity to spend New Years eve in Yellowstone to watch the passing of 2007. The park in the winter is spectacular, but then again it always is.

While hiking around Old Faithful through the Upper Geyser Basin I was contemplating how wonderful this place is and how the foresight of our government played a great role in preserving this area for future generations.

With a little research I discovered that while the government was ultimately supportive, it was largely the railroad companies that supported and promoted the creation of the world's first national park as an opportunity to haul more than freight and to profit from delivering tourists to the park. Specifically it was the Union Pacific (UP) and Central Pacific (CP) railroads which transported the survey teams, free of charge into to Yellowstone around 1870. The Hayden valley of Yellowstone bears the name of the chief surveyor, Ferdinand V. Hayden. The railroads used this survey to lobby congress to declare this area a national park. In a blinding 1 1/2 year effort congress passed a law designating Yellowstone as a national park in 1872.


Sustainable Eco Tourism was born with the foundation of Yellowstone National Park largely out of the desire to make a profit. Subsequent parks were established with the same motivation. Notably Glacier National Park with its extensive Chalet system and Waterton Park just north of the USA / Canada border linking Americans deprived of whiskey during the prohibition of the 1920's/30's to a source of fun, natural beauty and yes legal whiskey.

Sustainable business practices can relate to all businesses and plays an important role in our moving forward as a "sustainable" society. There is nothing wrong with profit and everything right with profit, especially when profit helps us support ourselves and a cleaner environment.

Carbon Neutral Shipping is Free to Our Customers

I'm very pleased to announce that as of January 1, 2008 The Paper Mill Store .com has begun shipping all of its outbound shipments in a carbon neutral manner. What this means is that we now calculate the carbon footprint associated with our out bound product shipping and purchase carbon offsets to lessen the impact of the carbon produced through our shipping. We do not charge extra for this service, this is just one more step we are taking to run our company in a more sustainable and responsible manner. We are now purchasing carbon offsets through the Carbon Fund to reduce the impact of our shipping process. Now when you buy paper and envelopes from us you can know that the carbon produced through the delivery of your purchases is being offset by a credible and verifiable organization.

For more than a year now we have been running our company using wind power purchased through Renewable Energy Credits and verified by Green-e. All the electrical power in our offices in Sun Prairie Wisconsin and in our distribution center in Neenah Wisconsin are 100% powered using renewable energy credits.

Wedding Professionals Resources

We have just updated our resources for Wedding Professionals.

We now have Wedding Paper Collection Chip Charts to help with the initial paper selection process. Moving forward we have Wedding Paper Collection Sample Packs to let Wedding Professionals and Brides to be the opportunity to touch and feel select wedding papers before they buy. And finally the Wedding Paper Chip Charts and Wedding Paper Sample Packs lead buyers to our Wedding Paper Collections where buyers get the opportunity to buy these specially selected papers to include within their wedding projects.

As well we offer Design Templates and Color Theory books.

Sunday Morning to air show on Finch Paper land sale

The Sunday morning news show, Sunday Morning, is scheduled to air a show showing the extraordinary terrain within the Adirondacks Park recently purchased by the Nature Conservancy from Finch Paper this Summer.

Sunday Morning is expected to air the show on Sunday December 30th. The show airs 9:00 to 10:30 hosted by Charles Osgood.

The beautiful places captured on video include:

The Boreas Ponds, with spectacular views of the High Peaks Wilderness

The Boreas River, a major tributary of the Hudson River, with ice and snow closing in on a ribbon of open water

The Branch River, also a Hudson River tributary, cascading through a mature floodplain forest.

As per my previous post this is a great example of land preservation. Enjoy.

Envelope Printing with Soy Ink - No Sacrifice

I'm really pleased to announce that we've made another good step forward in our sustainability project. We are now printing all of our envelopes with soy inks. This is another example of our being able to identify an opportunity and to target a solution.

The advantages of using soy inks are many. Using soy ink offers safe and sustainable alternatives to using conventional oil based inks. We've found that printing with soy inks produces images with the same good quality as conventional inks.

There is no sacrifice in using soy based inks and it has a positive environmental impact. A benefit of using soy ink is that it is lower in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's), making it safer and less toxic. As well, soy is a renewable resource and is made here in the USA. Another added benefit of using soy ink is that at the end of the product's life when the printed envelope makes its way to the recycling process, soy ink is more easily stripped from the paper during the de-inking process than petroleum based inks.

Printing with soy inks is another incremental step that you can make to improve your overall environmental impact. When you have your envelopes printed with soy inks you are entitled to use the soy ink log and show that you've made the choice to support sustainable printing.

Recycled Packing Materials

Our search for more recycled and lower impact packaging materials to use throughout our company has taken on a life of its own. It's become fun to search out and find the best materials available.

I'm proud to report that all of the packaging materials we use for shipping out customer orders on The Paper Mill Store are now recycled. As previously reported we've had 50% recycled shipping boxes since this summer. As of today our packing materials are as follows.

• 50% recycled fiber shipping boxes
• 20% recycled plastic filler
• 85% recycled printed box tape

I'd like to thank everyone on the team who made this possible. Let's keep up the good work and meet the next sustainable challenge.

Our Business Case for Sustainability

We've had a compelling story to tell lately about the new initiatives we've taken to improve the way our business operates. I recently wrote an article for the Environmental News Network (ENN). Our story is about one company. Imagine if every small and large company took what steps they could to operate in a less negatively environmentally impactful manner.

Domtar to Close Port Edwards, WI Paper Mill

Another major paper mill closure has been announced today. Domtar has reported their intention to close the Port Edwards Wisconsin paper mill during the first half of 2008. Port Edwards is a mill with a long history of making fine papers.

In Domtar's letter to its customers dated today they do not give a specific reason for the closure. They do however imply that they have excess capacity within their manufacturing system and will create a transition plan for Port Edwards products to be manufactured at other Domtar paper mills.

I can only speculate that this action is due to the ongoing divergence between manufacturing capacity and market demand with the North American markets.

Get Ready SFI is coming in a Big Way!

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is coming to a market near you. SFI is a non-profit third party independent sustainable forestry certification organization dedicated to certifying sustainable forestry practices in North America.

These folks have been in existence since 1995 and until now have been quietly working to protect N. American forests. They currently have 130 million acres certified as part of their program. A growing number of supply chain participants across the continent of which The Paper Mill Store is working towards joining with a hopeful certification date of the end of this month December 2007 is making it easier to purchase and specify SFI paper and envelopes.

SFI has committed to a multi million dollar advertising campaign targeting the major cities of N. America. Over this past Thanksgiving holiday week I found myself on a plane headed towards New York City, reading the NYT. I saw a large ad touting SFI. Upon landing and walking around Manhattan I saw numerous bus stop and telephone booth signage advertising SFI. SFI has been a sleeping giant and according to their President & C.E.O. Kathy Abusow those days are over. Kathy reported to me that SFI intends to get their message out to the marketplace and help to build demand for SFI certified wood products. This is the only forest certification program targeted at the specific needs and circumstances of N. America's forest which are largely made up of patchworks of privately owned land.

Keep your eyes and ears open as you are going to hear a lot more about this important organization.

Square Envelopes Make a Statement

Due to overwhelming demand The Paper Mill Store envelope department has added a huge inventory of various square envelope sizes. We found that all envelope square sizes are in great demand from our customers. We've added squares from 5 x 5 square envelopes to 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 square envelopes and in all sizes in between by 1/2 increments.

We have economical white square envelopes using Wausau Paper's Exact Ice paper and premium translucent square envelopes using CTI Paper USA's Glama Natural. Glama Natural is an Forest Stewardship Council certified paper so you can know that the fiber used to make this envelope came from well managed forests.

The Paper Mill Store Now Has the Largest Online Inventory of Strathmore Paper and Envelopes

Just these past few weeks The Paper Mill Store has made a major inventory commitment to make the Strathmore line of paper and envelopes available in all markets for next day delivery. Working closely with our friends at Mohawk Fine Papers, we established a list of 184 envelope items that we have on our floor in our Paper Valley, Wisconsin warehouse ready to ship today.

Strathmore is a great line of paper. It is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, made with wind power and produced carbon neutral, with recycled options and tree free cotton options. As one of the oldest and best known lines of text and cover paper in North America we're happy to be among the newest suppliers to offer this great line of papers to everyone in all markets.

The problem that we recognized was that if a graphic designer wanted to use a Strathmore Green Heather A6 envelope it was almost impossible for them to get that specific envelope quickly and in a reasonable quantity, like one box of 250 envelopes. Now this is an easy exercise for anyone to accomplish through our enlarged stocking commitment.

Wausau Paper to Close Groveton Paper Mill

Just announced today, Wausau Paper will close its Groveton paper mill by years' end. Another sign of the chronic over capacity facing paper mills in North America. This reduces Wausau's production by 105,000 tons or 28% of its capacity within its Printing and Writing group. Along with the mill closure about 300 + jobs will be lost.

The Printing and Writing group has struggled with profitability for some time. Last year in the same period it made profits of $1.1 million and in contrast for this 3rd quarter lost $1.3 million. This fast move by the Wausau Paper Board of Directors is a part of a larger three part plan to return the Printing and Writing group to profitability by cutting costs and focusing on its core grades; Astrobrights, Exact and Royal lines.

Neenah Paper Adds Carbon Neutral Papers

Neenah Paper has just announced that they have added carbon neutral papers to some of their best selling lines of paper. The six paper brands now offered as carbon neutral are, Classic Crest, Classic Laid, Classic Cotton and Starwhite. Starwhite was recently acquired by Neenah Paper during their purchase of Fox River Paper Company.

We have not received the specifics of the carbon offset purchased for these papers. I will follow up with more details when I receive them. I'll be meeting with the folks at Neenah Paper in a few days.

What we do know is that Neenah Paper is making real and substantive change to their business operations to lessen their impact on the environment. Just as an example Neenah Paper started buying Green-e offsets in 2006 and has since more than quadrupled their their purchases. Additionally this past May Neenah joined the Chicago Climate Exchange making commitments to further reduce their carbon output.

Follow Up On Wausau Paper's Eco-Initiatives

Earlier I had posted news about Wausua Paper's impressive initiatives in using less water. The improved water management conducted by Wausau Paper has had significant, meaningful and measurable positive impact on the surrounding community of Brokaw, Wisconsin. During the last 2 years the company reduced the water its takes from the Wisconsin River by more than 3.5 million gallons per day and reduced the amount of well water usage by as much as 98%. This has been accomplished through a major commitment to improve its processes and to re-use water when possible. Not only is this a great win for the friends of the Wisconsin River but also for the town of Brokaw where the town has been able to idle several of its wells.

Once again, nice job!

Monadnock Paper Mills Goes Carbon Neutral

I'm happy to report on Monadnock's continued support of sustainable manufacturing. Just recently Monadnock had purchased renewable energy credits to cover the 51% of its electrical usage that they did not generate themselves through their low impact hydroelectric dam. Now Monadnock has gone one better by purchasing carbon offset credits to offset the total carbon footprint from its manufacturing facilities as they relate to the manufacturing of their graphic arts and packaging papers.

Meet one of the nice folks at Monadnock in this video interview.

Bravo. Another step forward!

Wausau Paper's effective water management

Every consumer should understand how much influence they have as a group. You can see all over the market how resource intensive companies are taking a very close look at how they operate their plants. My industry, the paper industry is no different.

I know the folks at Wausau Paper personally and I know as individuals that many of them genuinely care about the environment. However you need a company management that sees better business practices to be in its best interest to make real change. This is how Wausau Paper appears to view things.

Over the last two years Wausau Paper has reduced their consumption of water at their Brokaw, WI paper mill by, get this, 2 billion gallons of water per year. That's approximately 5.5 million less gallons of water consumed a day. This water consumption savings is equal to approximately 80 million loads in a dishwasher and 70 million loads of laundry.

That's impressive and I congratulate Wausau Paper for their efforts. I also congratulate the consumers who have voiced their desires for cleaner manufacturing. Keep up the good work.

Designing on translucent paper

Back in 1994 when we developed our first line of translucent printing papers, Glama Natural, the art of designing with translucent papers was pretty rudimentary. We found that graphic designers worked with theses more opaque papers as if these papers where not translucent at all. You would see typical process printing on the surface of the paper without including any of the translucent dimension of the paper into the design concept.

Our first Glama Natural swatch book had a printed sample with a simple opaque white ink printed on the translucent paper representing fog rising from a lush forest which was depicted on the coated sheet below. The show through and the effect of the interaction of the two images were outstanding. From that point forward we saw many graphic designers taking the first steps towards utilizing the interactive nature between translucent paper and the opaque papers below.

CTI Paper USA penned a recent article which gives a more detailed overview of how to create effective design using translucent papers.

Paper Weights Demystified Again...

This important and confusing topic of how to understand paper weights in the U.S.A. deserves another visit. We constantly hear from our friends that paper weights remain confusing to many people. Understanding paper weights is a matter of reading some of the short articles and charts we publish on this topic.

You will learn that the main categories (Basis) of fine paper weights are: Writing, Text, Cover, Bond, Index, Tag and Bristol. It is always important to know which basis you are talking about. An 80 lb text paper is not equal to an 80 lb cover paper. The cover is a heavier paper.

The Importance of Press Checks

Some folks in the design community think that once you've created your design and shipped it off to your local printer that your work is done. Just sit back and let the accolades roll in, au contraire, you're close to the goal line but still far enough away.

Many things can change from your Mac to the print shop. Of course CMYK color won't be one of them if you used the TINTBOOKS color management system. Still you have plenty of factors that you should personally check to ensure your project comes out as you've planned.

We've outlined some points on How to Do Press Checks succesfully.

When the Gas Company Calls...

We were very surprised to hear from the local Gas company. Our local gas company WE in the Paper Valley in Wisconsin called to find out if a problem existed. They were concerned because our gas usage plummeted. They figured something was wrong. However everything was right.

We reduced our warm weather usage of gas through a new equipment purchase and by using common sense to better manage our usage.

Here's how we did it.

Utility Savings Project

Project: Decrease monthly gas costs during warm weather months

Proposed: Eliminate high natural gas heating bills during summer months

Scope: Adjust environmental control to maintain proper humidity and temperature levels without using supplemental heat, and reduce costs.

Process: We identified the natural gas usage problem as improper calibration of two separate systems to control temperature and humidity in the manufacturing area. Both systems were controlled with a sophisticated real-time computer-processing program that would turn heating and cooling on at the same time. Adjustments were made to the control system by increasing the set temperature to turn on cooling at 76 degrees and adding a two-degree dead band, and turn on heating at 67 degrees with a two-degree dead band, so we were able to control the environment in the building at proper temperature limits. In conjunction with temperature, the humidity control is programmed to turn on dehumidification at 60% relative humidity and turn on humidity at less than 45% relative humidity.

Results: Natural Gas savings of 250 therms of natural gas usage that is not required to provide heat to the manufacturing area. 250 therms of natural gas is equivalent to 2925 pounds of carbon dioxide gas (1 therm = 11.7 pounds of carbon dioxide) (Doe, 2007) in one month. If we conservatively figure five months of savings, we eliminated about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere by readjusting the environment control in the manufacturing area eliminating the natural gas consumption.

There will be an added benefit in the reduction of total electricity, due to the environmental changes that will result in saving KWH per month. At this time, there is not substantial data to provide an accurate savings due to reduced KWH, but keep in mind besides the dollar savings, the power company produces electricity with natural gas, so the total greenhouse gas savings will be more than this report identifies.

We Now Sell 100% Recycled Shipping Boxes

Buy Recycled Shipping Boxes Here

We were really surprised at how hard it was to secure these 50% recycled boxes. We knew we wanted new shipping boxes with the most recycled content possible. As a paper company executive I thought, mistakenly, that most brown corrugated boxes would certainly be recycled. Not so.

We also needed boxes with double thick walls to make sure that we were protecting our paper and envelope shipments to the best of our ability. We know that nothing is more frustrating than to receive an order you've waited for only to find it damaged. Anyway, to make a long story short we now have these great boxes and use this as another example of our ongoing commitment to sustainable practices.

I am personally very serious about this process and I have instructed our managers to examine all of our processes and vendors and to make real changes to our business with the goal to lessen our impact on the environment. I believe that many small initiatives like ours will make a meaningful impact and help to maintain a healthy planet for future generations.

I hope you agree.

Finch Paper forest sale

As is well known by now, and written about here, Finch Paper recently sold an amazing piece of property located in the Adirondack Park in upper New York state. The sale of what was previously the largest piece of privately owned property by Finch to the Nature Conservancy will result in the preservation of this 161,000 acre property.

I have just returned from a visit to the Adirondacks last week. During my visit to New York state I dropped in to see our friends at Finch Paper and to touch base on the progress of the land sale. Such a huge sale, valued at $110 million, requires creative thinking to make the numbers come together. The Nature Conservancy is resourceful and has access to large sums of money. Even for this great organization the price tag and the 6 weeks it took to put this together is an amazing feat of creative thinking.

One important part of this sale is that Finch Paper will retain logging rights to the property and help the Nature Conservancy support this land with fees it will pay for the lumber harvested from the property. The forest will remain a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forest and provide generations of responsibly managed timber for paper making.

FSC protects & perserves forests

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) helps makes forestry profitable and sustainable. Through its forest certification process and the subsequent consumer support of FSC certified wood products, well run and sustainable forest are profitable. Profitable forests remain as forest land and avoid the all too common occurrence where forest land becomes more valuable as developed land and is sold to developers by its owners. When you support FSC wood products, specifically paper, you are supporting the existence of well managed forests and you are helping to keep forests as forests. Your buying decisions make a difference.

Some groups have fought to stop forestry on some privately owned lands. When these groups are successful the land lays fallow and becomes unprofitable. This can lead to lands being sold for development or uses other than forestry.

The sale of Finch Paper's Adirondack forests is a rare exception where the land is sold by the forester and is purchased by a responsible steward of the forest. As reported in my last post Finch Paper sold its 161,000 acres of prime Adirondacks forest land to the Nature Conservancy. I believe Finch's property was a well run, FSC forest, which was put on the market to raise cash for the new owners of Finch Paper and reduce the debt they incurred buying the company.

What would have happened if the Nature Conservancy did not find the funding for the $110 million price tag? Can you imagine the feeding frenzy, that this last and largest private parcel of Adirondack land, would have sparked from a variety of private interests looking to monetize this property.

The issue of forestry and environmental stewardship is complicated. The Forest Stewardship Council has created a scenario where being responsible is not just the "right thing to do" but it is also the profitable thing to do. FSC products preserve forests and help to stem development.

Here is an intersting article to further decribe this issue.

Finch Paper sells 161,000 acres in Adirondack Park

Largest Private Land Holdings in the Adirondacks

Yesterday Finch Paper announced that they sold 161,000 acres of forest land to the Nature Conservancy for $110 million. Finch Paper has been a solid steward of this property for more than 100 years when the company Finch Holding first began accumulating Adirondack land for timber harvesting.

In what has been described as the largest private land holding in the Adirondack Park is now in the hands of the Nature Conservancy for the rest of time. This parcel is a beautiful forest and is filled with hills, streams and gorges. This is prime Adirondack forest and the purchase by the Nature Conservancy will protect this parcel from future development.

This sale comes just a matter of weeks after the family owned Finch Paper was sold to a private equity group. The stated intention of the new owners of Finch Paper is to maintain paper production at its Glenn Falls, NY paper mill. It is not uncommon for paper companies to sell off timber lands and this sale of the 161,00 acres would be consistent with this recent industry trend.

HOW Design Conference Videos

See Exclusive HOW Conference Videos

Nothing beats attending the HOW show to experience the energy and to have the opportunity to talk to other people in graphic design from around the country and the world. Even if you attended, did you get to talk to the paper mills during the mad rush? Did you get to hear what some of the industries biggest names had to say? Maybe and maybe not.

We have some great videos to give you an insiders view of the conference no matter where you were last week. See our exclusive HOW Design Conference videos.

HOW Design Conference 2007

We came back from the HOW Design Conference Wednesday. Travel was smooth except for the bomb scare in the Atlanta airport that caused the longest security line I've seen since getting back into the USA from Europe the days after September 11th. We found some great places in Atlanta. We stayed at the Glenn Hotel Friday and Saturday, the roof cocktail bar is outstanding. YUPO held a party there one night. Couches and views as far as you can see. As well the Atalanta Botanical garden is a must see. However all Northerners should be sure to get there early in the day as by 4:00 pm the heat was oppressive. One of the best orchid collections I've ever seen.

Last but not least as places to go is Rathbuns for great dinners, good wines and a great atmosphere. Its neighbor the Krog bar is a must for a pre or post dinner cocktail. This is a great place to meet friends or take your special someone. Great service. We went there 2 nights.

The HOW conference was great from our point of view as suppliers exhibiting. We met with a huge number of graphic designers in our booth, we gave away two sets of TINTBOOKS, winners to be announced, and we created 10 exclusive videos speaking with industry observers and paper mills, etc. We're going to post these videos Sunday night.

Paper & Envelopes Videos

We've posted the first in a series of educational videos for graphics professionals, students and everyone interested in seeing how things happen. The videos provide an inside view of how paper is made, how envelopes are made and other secondary processes related to graphic design and the paper industry. We visited Neenah Paper's newly acquired Appleton Paper mill, formally owned by Fox River Paper company. We also visited the National Envelope envelope manufacturing plant in Appleton, Wisconsin.

It's amazing how prolific the paper industry is in this part of the country. Even though the landscape is almost perfectly flat the area is known as the Paper Valley. We located our business in Neenah, WI (the Paper Valley) because of the large number of paper related companies, businesses and professionals concentrated in the relatively small geographic area.

Managing Color from Design to Print

Managing color on printing projects has long been a difficult task. Prior to the digital age press proofing was probably the best way to not necessarily ensure that the colors from your project were correct, according to your original design, but that the colors being produced on press were at least acceptable to your project's goals. Now with the digital age firmly implanted within every project, designers are facing problems from a multitude of sources related to color management.

Communicating accurate color with PC monitors is a nightmare. Even with proper calibration sharing these files requires that everyone along the chain agrees on calibration. Proofing today can also be a haphazard event depending on various toners, equipment and substrates used for proofing. At the end of the day you only want to understand what color will appear after the press run.

Pantone or PMS colors offer one solution. Only about 42% of Pantone colors can be reproduced with CMYK. Pantone does offer a variety of tools for color management. However, I think the problem can only be addressed by a variety of methods, each addressing specific issues. Taking control of color management is an important role of every designer.

U.S.A. Paper Weights...Why?

Back onto one of my favorite subjects again, paper measure in the U.S.A. Two major influences have caused our country to have the most complicated and convoluted paper measurement system in the world.

The King has Ten Toes

First I blame our friends across the water, the English, for creating the intolerably complicated imperial measure system and then imposing it upon us. Yards, stones, quarts, feet for goodness sakes, it's all too ridiculous once you become aware of the simplicity that most of the modern world enjoys with the metric system. Couldn't these folks count? With the exception of Henry VIII I believe they could see their fingers and toes and therefore had the tools to figure out the metric system. Thank God we threw them out of the US before the automobile was invented or we'd all be driving on the wrong side of the road.

Washington Know How

Of course we do have ourselves to blame for accepting imperial measure. We have never taken the initiative to throw this system out with the trash. I remember a push in the 70's to "go metric" and then, somehow, it just faded away into the far off distance with the idea of decent gas mileage and alternatives to oil. To make matters worse, in the 1800's, the U.S. federal government took imperial measure and applied it to paper measure, with a demented twist.

For heavens sake, the system is so complex that it is as though two government bureaucrats were chatting one night, over a grog, and one suggested that we might make things easier and streamline the U.S. systems of measurement to the horror of the other bureaucrat. Who replied, "Stop man! You must be insane. We'll make a system so confusing and filled with exceptions that no one will be able to use it without our help or the help of published guides and rules. Here's an idea, how about we make a system where we call this light weight paper 80 lb and then we call this heavy paper 80 lb as well?" The devilish deed was completed. I can only hope that this scenario is somewhat close to how U.S. paper measure was concocted, the alternative that someone somehow thought this was a good idea is just too alarming to consider.

I try to bring some clarity to the system in my article Paper Weights Demystified... I hope you find this soothing.

Neenah Paper Announces Plans for Acquired Brands

Last week Neenah Paper made some initial announcements about the future of the brands they have acquired in the Fox River Paper / Gilbert Paper acquisition. Neenah Paper is moving quickly to inform the markets of its decisions regarding brands to minimize the anxiety and questions surrounding this subject.

Here's the gist of the news

Writing Papers

Neenah intends to continue and fully support with promotional materials; Neutech, Fox River Select, Capitol Bond and Gilbert Cottons.

Neenah will offer for the foreseeable future without promotional materials; Fox River Bond, Correspond, Chadwick Cotton and Gilcrest.

Translucent Papers

Neenah intends to consolidate the four brands of translucent now in the combined companies. The brands are; UV Ultra II, UV web, GilClear and Clearfold. No further announcement of brand names has been made as of this date. The strategy is to consolidate into a premium brand and an economy brand.

Text and Cover

Neenah intends to continue and fully support with promotional materials; Starwhite, Coronado, Sundance, ESSE, Oxford and Howard Linen.

Specialty Brands

Neenah is contemplating how to position and how to move forward with; Crushed Leaf, Valley Forge, Parchment, Voice, EverGreen, Gainsborough and Teton. They state they will "extract the strengths moving forward" from these brands and position them appropriately.

Brands to be discontinued

Neenah plans to stop producing Realm and Confetti.

Neenah promises to make its intentions known to the market and pledges to announce further changes 3 to 6 months into the future informing the marketplace of substantive changes.

China, South Korea and Indonesia lose tariff fight

A landmark decision was handed down today by the U.S. Commerce Department adding punitive tariffs on coated paper imports into the U.S. by China, South Korea and Indonesia. Below are the schedules of duties.

• Chinese coated papers to add 10.9% to 20.3% tariff
• Indonesia coated papers to add 21.24% tariff
• S. Korea coated papers to add 1.76% tariff with some companies exempted from the tax

This ruling reverses decades of policy by the U.S. Commerce department who previously only add anti dumping tariffs. This ruling is thought to pave the way for other industries and companies to bring similar actions to protect USA manufacturing from cheaper Asian imports. As well, as of lately with the new Congress in power increasing loud rumbles have increased about penalizing China for its trading practices, unfair subsidies and a weak currency. It appears the tide is turning.

Unfounded Concerns about China's Debt holdings.

Some voices of Wall Street reacted negatively to today's ruling sending the Dow Jones down a fraction. Concerns have been voiced about China's reaction given that they are the USA's second largest trading partner, next to Canada, and with the amount of U.S. Bonds the Chinese hold. Most of these concerns will most likely be shrugged off. For one, China will not stop exporting to the USA, so no worries about the trading partner status. Second China holds $350 +/- billion in U.S. government debt. While this sounds like a lot, the debt market is a $4 trillion a day market. $350 billion dollars can easily wash through this system in a matter of a few days. No worries on that front either.

Stopping Asian Coated Paper

New Page Corporation Takes a Stand

Friday March 30th is the expected day a court decision is to be announced regarding imposing tariffs on Asian coated paper coing into the USA. This past year, New Page Paper had filed a suit charging Asian paper producers with dumping coated paper here in the North America, the most coveted paper market in the world, at below market prices through foreign government subsidies and cheap labor.

It's about Money

The Asian paper issue has been brewing for a number of years. Starting on the west coast mainly Chinese, S. Korean and Indonesian paper producers have been pumping out cheap paper and dumping this paper into USA markets. The affect, not surprising, has been to force USA coated paper manufacturers to artificially hold down prices. Sometimes the differential between domestically produced and Asian coated papers has been reported to be as much as $20 cwt. Grouping the Asian producers in one group, they are commonly regarded as having very low service levels and unreliable shipping habits. However, such a huge price discount still creates demand for these products here from those looking to purchase paper as cheaply as possible regardless of service, reliability and environmental concerns.

It's About the Environment

USA and North American paper mills have been leaping forward in new environmentally sound initiatives one after the other. The Asian producers have mostly ignored this environmental call to action and maintain practices of using wood harvested from non certified forests, do not provide many recycled options if any and seem to be unconcerned about Global climate change and the emissions of C02. I have yet to see an Asian paper mill boast of using a renewable energy source.

The Court will Decide

Is it right or wrong to levy tariffs on a low cost producer? Sometime, hopefully today, a USA court will make that decision in a legal sense. If this action succeeds it will be very good news for USA coated paper mills and it will have ripple effects throughout the paper and graphic arts industry. More to come. Stay tuned.

Specialty Paper Bonanza

I was looking through my collection of fine paper swatch books the other day and the huge availability of extraordinary specialty papers in North America shocked me. I've been intimately involved in distributing and designing specialty papers for 18 years. The number of specialty papers available today just crept up on me and took me by surprise in retrospect.

When I first started the CTI Paper Group back in 1989 specialty papers were relatively rare in the main stream commercial printing markets of North America. The really beautiful papers were almost all made in Europe. A few European companies, Zanders and Fedrigoni, had some small distribution here in the USA. The sheet sizes were weird (metric), the packaging was weird (package wrapped no cartons) and the prices were, well out of sight by the standards of the day. The fact was at that time that if you wanted a really unique printing paper you had to source it from a European paper mill. My theory has been that because of Europe's older paper mills, less efficient machines, together with their inherent understanding of design and fashion and the need to add as much value as possible to the fiber coming off of the older less efficient machines that this led European manufacturers to create the large variety of specialty papers they still offer today.

The Tide is Turning

Our company began creating specialty papers by designing papers in partnership with Euro paper mills in the mid 1990's. We developed, for commercial printing markets and broad distribution, the first and most widely recognized naturally translucent paper, Glama Natural and it's companion Glama-lope envelope in 1994-ish. We later decided to bring some of our efforts home when we designed and manufactured Aspire Petallics, the first ever mica coated colored paper to be manufactured in North America. We have subsequently redesigned our Currency metallic paper and we continue to manufacture Currency here in the state of Wisconsin. I assure you that other great papers are in the hopper.

In the last 4 to 5 years other leading North American paper mills, previously only uncoated text and cover mills, have begun to develop interesting value added specialty papers in the European tradition, probably for the same reasons I mentioned previously. Some examples of these more progressive mills are; Wausau Paper who now has some great metallics, Fox River Paper (now Neenah Paper) developed a very nice metallic line and Smart Papers has for years has manufactured Kromekote cast coated paper and now in more recent years has added some very nice additions to its flagship line with foils and patterns.

Land ho

The biggest advantage of North American made value added specialty papers to the consumer is availability. Early on in my sales career I was fond of saying, "You can have a great paper at great prices and if you can't get it when you need it, who cares." This statement remains true today. Lead times for papers made here are generally faster and inventories tend to be higher. The fact of the existence of the Atlantic ocean sitting between supplier and consumer can't be changed and vessels only sail so fast. Another factor favoring North American paper mills versus European paper mills is the dollar /euro conversion. As the euro goes up against the dollar European papers can tend to become more expensive. Domestic paper mills prices tend to move up only when the market as a whole moves keeping most domestic papers in line with each other.

Europeans will continue to create gorgeous papers and now they will have more competition from domestic paper companies which is always good for the consumers.

Housatonic Paper Mill (Rising Paper) to Close by June 07

Another one bites the dust could be an appropriate epithet for the tombstone of this latest closing of a fine paper mill. The Rising paper mill located in Housatonic Massachusetts is being closed as a result of it not being a profitable paper mill. The new owners, Neenah Paper, have made a solid business based decision to close the Housatonic paper mill.

A lot of emotions surround the closing of the Housatonic mill. First, for me, this paper mill is the most beautiful paper mill that I have every visited. It's brick exterior and white wood trim depict an architectural style used in the construction of factories back in the 1870's when the mill was built. The building provides a visually pleasing landscape to all who pass by the curving road winding alongside the Housatonic River. The mill structure itself is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Perhaps more meaningful is the loss of approximately 140 good paying jobs in the Berkshires where good factory jobs are not plentiful.

During a visit to a framing shop in Madison, WI on St. Patrick's day I realized another concern about the closing of the Houstatonic paper mill which is the unknown future Rising Museum Board. Yikes, this hits home with me again. Practically every framed piece in my home and in our company offices are framed with Rising Museum Board.

I'm sorry to see the loss of jobs, the loss of craftsmanship and the possible loss of great paper products. The truth is that Neenah Paper is making a sound business decision that will serve to strengthen the company and protect more jobs and more great papers. Time moves on.

The Eco Rush is On

The paper industry has heard the cry for eco-friendly practices loud and clear. There is much opportunity for the paper industry to provide products and services that lessen the negative impact of the industry's activities on the environment.

Over the past couple of years two environmentally beneficial initiatives have taken hold in the paper industry, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of forests and renewable energy. Both of these initiatives provide substantial benefit to lessening the impact of paper manufacturing and distribution on the environment. What I find intriguing is that both of these initiatives are voluntary and can be economically beneficial to the companies supporting these programs.

Briefly FSC certification, with the consumers support, increases demand for FSC products and therefore adds value to these products throughout the manufacturing and distribution channels. Renewable energy and most commonly wind power offer an opportunity for companies to purchase Renewable Energy Credits (REC) that in effect subsidize the growth of renewable energy production, more wind farms, etc. Purchasing REC also adds value to a company's marketing profile and reduces quantifiable amounts of carbon from our atmosphere.

FSC and REC represent two programs which provide significant environmental benefits, significant economic benefits and for those of you preferring less government regulation the programs are 100% voluntary by industry. Consumers are the driving force behind this movement. If you are interested in seeing these and other beneficial environmental steps move forward support companies and products that support these programs. You might find yourself amazed at the power the consumer has today. Company executives are listening in unprecedented numbers.