Pulp Faction

Follow Our Paper Trail on Twitter

2009-06-15T13:44:00.004-05:00

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

2009-06-03T07:45:00.003-05:00

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

2009-04-08T07:48:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-03T11:05:00.004-06:00

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

2009-02-16T18:56:00.005-06:00

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

2008-12-21T11:39:00.014-06:00

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

2008-12-13T09:58:00.003-06:00

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

2008-12-04T16:30:00.004-06:00

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...

2008-12-03T06:56:00.006-06:00

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

2008-11-12T06:28:00.004-06:00

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

2008-11-12T04:57:00.006-06:00

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

2008-11-09T10:33:00.004-06:00

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...

2008-11-06T18:40:00.008-06:00

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, Strathmor e 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

2008-10-31T11:13:00.004-05:00

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

2008-10-30T05:52:00.005-05:00

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

2008-10-20T18:32:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-18T14:39:00.003-05:00

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...

2008-10-14T13:08:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-12T11:41:00.002-05:00

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

2008-10-06T15:13:00.002-05:00

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

2008-08-11T07:55:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-29T14:08:00.005-05:00

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

2008-07-26T16:17:00.006-05:00

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

2008-07-22T21:26:00.003-05:00

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

2008-06-20T11:18:00.004-05:00

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.