Happy New Year!

Believe it or not, this is the final entry in the “business packaging / holiday packaging contest“! Please make sure you scroll through the previous entries to make sure you haven’t missed anything!

Here is Kristina Stredwick of Just One Photography…

My name is Kristina Stredwick from Just One Photography. Here are pictures of my regular packaging and my special Holiday packaging. My regular packaging is simple and classic with the kraft colors (since different products bear different tones) and silver. I have many Senior Sessions and they love the tin boxes that come with the zip drive and then again when they order wallet size pictures. The accordion albums come in a bag which is usually matching their school colors. For the newborn sessions they get baby blue or pink. Brown bags and boxes are adorned with silver ribbon and logo oval stickers.

This is my first Holiday Season with my business and I am so excited. I only offered the watermarked proofs on CD’s for the holidays (instead of my regular option of CD or zip drive) and people loved the snowflakes! I wrapped up each holiday card set with ribbon and special tags or buttons as shown, then I tucked them into a snowflake adorned bag.

All I had left to deliver were my own cards – so that is my family peaking out from the ribbons! Enjoy and have a happy holiday season!

Absolutely stunning Kristina – and the perfect close to a long string of amazing submissions!

I have no idea how I’m narrowing the entries down to three, but check back next Monday and you can help select one of those as the big winner in the first-annual Paperie Boutique “business packaging / holiday packaging contest“! The voting will run from noon EST Monday, January 3, 2011 – 11 p.m. EST on Friday, January 7, 2011.

The lucky winner will receive a $20 Paper Source gift card and an additional $100 gift certificate to HB Photo Packaging!

Don’t forget – you can still get the entire “Fit to Print” store on sale (for $40.00) through January 1st, 2011! Get over $300.00 in products (including the binder template) for $40.00 – an 87% savings and some designs retire in 2011!

The $9 Zazzle gift code off custom binders (template included in this sale here) expires at 11:59 p.m. PST on 12.31.10

Have an amazing 2011 everyone!
-Robyn

gimme an S! an E! an O!

The digital edition of the September 2010 Professional Photographer Magazine was released today.

(P.S. Keep reading for a special giveaway from photographers-seo.com!)

For this month’s article, I reviewed several digital media storage products by BellaGrafica (“Jeff & Julia Woods General Collection“), DNL Photo Packaging, JLee Albums, Loktah, Miller’s Professional Imaging and The Designer Concept, MpixPro, Pexagon Tech, Rice Studio Supply, and Verbatim.

Click each of the magazine pages above for a larger view. You can find the article on page 48 and page 50 of the print-version when it hits mailboxes. And you can also download the digital edition now if you’re a PPA member or digital subscriber.

And last month Heather Lickliter of Stylized Portraiture helped me write the August “The Goods” column. This month she’s escaped over to the new “Workflow Polish” column where she shares her post-session workflow, with added comments / critique by Audrey Woulard. Congratulations Heather!




Today’s guest / vendor post is by Zach Prez. He has freebies and a prize for Paperie readers!

Hi, I’m Zach Prez. I specialize in search engine optimization for photographers, although I’ve been helping small businesses rank in Google for about 10 years. There’s no better feeling than helping someone become successful on the web and grow his or her business. Okay, maybe there are a few things better, like cycling on the American River Bike trail near Sacramento, CA.

I wrote Photographers SEO Book almost 2 years ago now. What started as some informal phone conversations with my photographer friend quickly expanded into ninja tactics that boomed her business from Google in a matter of weeks. Everyone wanted to know her secret, so I turned those conversations into a non-technical how to guide that any level of photographer can follow. It has since helped hundreds of people understand and improve in search results.

Earlier this year I released Photography Blog SEO Zen. It’s an ebook for photographers, designers, or wedding vendors on how to update your blog infrastructure and write blog posts to rank more easily. Blogs typically output many more pages than a traditional website, meaning more chances to rank in search. Blogs are especially helpful in ranking very specific phrases (long-tail SEO) so I would hope you see about 3x the traffic from your blog compared to your photography website. My blogs and ebook help you get there.

I’m giving away one of each product above for Paperie Boutique readers. Enter to win by commenting on any blog post on either of my websites – photographers-seo.com -OR- photoblogseo.com – by the end of the day on Saturday. (We’ll notify and announce the winners on Monday.) You’ll learn something new and hopefully share your thoughts about the post, what you learned, or something insightful

If you want something FREE right now, check out my Search Engine Optimization Guide for SmugMug Sites -OR- Email SEO Class for Photographers.

UPDATE: The winners have both been announced here – check them out!

Thanks Zach for sharing such valuable information with our readers!

And don’t forget we currently have two giveaway-contests going on here at Paperie. Through midnight Wednesday you can have a chance to win your choice of camera bags from Jo Totes. And through midnight Thursday you have the chance to win a $50 gift certificate from Denny Manufacturing.

flash of brilliance

One of the recent WPPI 2010 Las Vegas wrap-up reports featured incredible looking photo flash drives. As Lady Luck would have it, Photoflashdrive.com found out about that blog entry via Twitter, and instantly a promo was arranged. This year you don’t have to go to Vegas just to win big!

Photoflashdrive.com is an offshoot of Pexagon Technology that caters specifically to you: Photographers!

We offer flash drives, smartphone cases & more – personalized with your design or logo at no additional charge and never with a minimum order qty. As a courtesy to photographers we offer everyday savings of 30% off flash drives when you shop though photoflashdrive.com.

At WPPI 2010 in Las Vegas we had the opportunity to show off our newest wood flash drive line…

As thanks for our guest-blog spot, we will be offering a 2GB personalized wood flash drive to 3 lucky winners who enter the contest at Paperie Boutique!

So how do you win? It’s simple!

Go to your blog, Facebook account, Flickr account, or Twitter account and post the following:

I’m in it to win it with Photoflashdrive.com / @photoflashdrive – visit Paperie Boutique / paperieboutique.com to see how you can win, too!

Please note: The link you post must direct to a public account. We cannot verify links on private, friends & family only, or passworded accounts and they will not be eligible to win this item.

You can enter up to four times total – one entry each per public, non-private blog URL / Facebook / Flickr / Twitter account. Post the URL to your link(s) in the comments for THIS ENTRY. Comment(s) must be posted here by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 28th.

The prize includes: a 2GB Personalized Wood flash drive (laser engraved with your logo!)

Comments on this entry will be numbered in order of posting. The winning number will be chosen by Random.org, and the winner will be contacted within 24 hours of contest’s end to claim their prize. Good luck everyone!

Thanks to everyone at Photoflashdrive.com for this amazing promo / giveaway! Their products add a brilliant, affordable twist to custom digital negative presentation.

UPDATE: In case you missed it, all three winners were announced in the comments – All That Glitters Photography, Renae Alane Photography, and Ooh La La Photography. Congrats to the winners and thanks so much to everyone who participated!

And don’t forget, the Design Aglow “Studio Look Book – Basic” contest is still running through 11:59 p.m. EDT tonight (Friday night)!

Have a great weekend –
Robyn

If you’re interested in having your own business packaging, marketing ideas, or photography-related products featured please contact me (my e-mail is in the sidebar and is robyn @ this domain – or you can leave a comment).

think pink

It’s no big secret what keeps y’all coming back for more… The guest posts with the pretty, pretty packaging! And as luck would have it, that’s just what I’m about to serve up… Prepare to be blown away by the gorgeous stylings of courtney jade photography!

What would cake be without the icing? Well, it would still be quite delicious, however it wouldn’t be quite as beautiful. The details are so important to me, and beautiful photos deserve beautiful packaging. From the luscious chocolate brown boxes, to the pop of the pink ribbon, nothing goes un-prettied! I’ve recently updated and upgraded my packaging, and so far everyone has loved it!

First of all, I’ve switched from putting my digital images on CDs and DVDs, and now clients will get their images on a USB Flash drive. I’ve decided to do this for a few reasons. 1) Most importantly, the images will be safer for a longer period of time. As time goes by, DVDs and CDs can lose data due to deterioration. 2) USB Drives can be re-used, recycled. If a client prefers, they can back up their USB Drive, and use it for other things. 3) They look nicer. It may be my personal preference, but USB Drives are compact, sleek, and sexy! Here’s a peek at what you’ll get when you purchase digital images from me.

Print orders will come in luscious chocolate boxes adorn with pretty pink bows!

Inside, your precious prints are wrapped in matching pink tissue! All prints are packaged in clear plastic bags inside for protection and easy handling.

Another new thing I am doing for clients is creating “referral cards”. This is a complimentary gift with any print order. Most of my clients are referrals, so what better way to get my name out there, than to give my clients miniature photos from their session with my contact information on it?! Everyone loves a wallet-sized photo to hand out to friends and family, so far my clients love this!!

I’ve also been working on updating all of my client materials. I’m not quite finished yet, but I have a feeling that in this field, there will always be more that I want to create! Here is a taste of materials that I’ve had printed to hand out to my clients and possible clients.

There are still more fabulous materials on the way, but for now I feel like my brand is established, and will only grow from here.

I am so excited to be able to be a guest on Paperie Boutique! I love this blog, and I look to it for inspiration and ideas on a very regular basis. Robyn has been an inspiration to me for years now, and I am so excited to see this blog blossom and grow! Thank you Robyn, and thanks to everyone who reads and participates in this community!

<3 Courtney Jade

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your products with us Courtney! They’re absolutely beautiful and I adore the pink – everything here is tied together so well! You have very lucky clients.

Make sure to visit her blog and tell her thank you for this guest post!

More new guest post features are currently in the works! If you’re interested in having your own business packaging, marketing ideas, or photography-related products featured please contact me (my e-mail is in the sidebar and is robyn @ this domain – or you can leave a comment).