MAR / APR NEWSLETTER 2021
Let's Spring into Spring! We have new tins, shapes and an Easter Set!
Some good news at last! – spring is here and we now have a road map out of the chaos of the Covid crisis. So this newsletter is brimming with exciting spring and Easter ideas and a project highlighting the use of our metal in the very profitable memorial market.
Talking of Easter, a heads up: we are shutting as normal for Good Friday and Easter Monday but adding an extra day off on Thursday 1st April to give us all some much needed family time to help recharge for the next chaos- the Fathers day run in!
Important Dates
Easter Shutdown Closed Thurs 1st, Good friday 2nd and EASTER MONDAY 5th APRIL FOR A MINI BREAK!
March/April Free Gift
As we have extended our tin range, we thought it would be nice for you to sample how fab they are! So throughout March and April we will be sending you a sample of one of our small tins in your order, supplied with a sample of our ultra thin strong double sided tape to secure the printable topper to the tin once pressed!
March/ April Special Offer
To complement our ‘free tin with order’, we are also offering you a special deal on purchase of any of our tins. Buy any twin packs of tins in March or April and receive an extra 10% off!
New Products
- NEW Alu sheet size – A3 Panoramic 405 x 141mm
- NEW Panoramic street sign – A2, A3, A4, A5 width
- Updated Rail sign -new sizes – Gigantic A2, Postal, A5, Small
- NEW Easter Treasure Hunt inc Bunny Sheep Carrot Chick
- NEW Easter Basket Shape
- Updated! new Rect tin sizes (inc. stationery / pencil tins)
- Updated! new Round tin sizes
- Updated! new 0.5mm budget tag shape – guitar pick
- Updated! new A3 SG words: SIS,BRO, NAN,GRAN, GRANPA
Customer ‘Share to win’ photos
This newsletter’s themes of Easter and Memorials are matched perfectly with these items designed and shared by the talented Sandra Wright who created the Happy Easter Egg A4 shape above and these circles– cleverly made to be centre pieces of wreaths: memorial, or seasonal!
Seasonal / Marketing Ideas
Spring is finally here and we have an exciting new product for you all …our New Easter set – perfect for treasure hunters, young or old! We have added some cute new shapes to this pack including a sheep, Chick, Rabbit Pawprint, Carrot, Easter Bunny and Egg Basket as well as our egg shape, old paper sheet to make a brilliant treasure map and medium shapes to make baubles ready for Easter Sunday!
After the year we have all had, this will add some much needed excitement into the household and give everyone something to do during the holidays! The A4 Egg Basket will look great hanging on the front door to spread the Spring joy to all who see it.
The eggs included could be used as a puzzle for the kids to find on their treasure hunt and spell out an Easter word, then used again for making bunting to hang around the house.
The perfect product for all ages of the family to enjoy and can be played around the house or outside (keep fingers crossed for sunny weather!)
Plantmarkers!
The warmer days are finally on their way and it’s the perfect time to spend more days outside and in the garden! We have a beautiful selection of plant and garden markers to keep your outdoors looking neat and tidy and knowing what every plant or vegetable in the ground actually is! They can be personalised to create special marker’s for those green fingered family and friends or make ideal teacher or Easter gifts to accompany flowers or plants.
One Item…Three Ways!
In this newsletter we thought we would show you a few ways to use our very popular rail sign! This shape is now in 9 sizes from small to gigantic A2, so the possibilities are almost endless! Here are some ideas to get you started:
OUTSIDE: This shape is great to use outside as a sign or notice for customers or visitors or could even be used as name or door plaques for kennels and stables (will weather OK, but ink may fade over time as below).
INSIDE: They also look great inside too! If you have a home bar or games room this product really finishes it off! Also great for family names to displaying in the heart of the home.
MEMORIAL: Tying in nicely with the project below, this product works well for memorials too. The long narrow design of the shape makes it great for fence rails and buildings!
On the subject of outdoor use, it is a little more complicated. Although our sublimation metal will weather fine – being aluminium it will not rust etc, none of the standard aluminium we sell is guaranteed not to fade in sunlight over time outside, except for the expensive Chromaluxe EXT – as that is the only metal we sell that has been certified UV resistant. Unfortunately how long the print will still be bright without fading is a ‘how long is a piece of string” question with many factors affecting it – including amount of sunlight exposed to (ie is it in full sunlight all day) image type (does it include dark / black text, full blocks of colour etc?) ink type and printer type used as well!
We normally say standard metal, as tested (non scientifically) by us, our customers and anecdotal evidence is fine outside for up to a year – even exposed to bright sunlight – for longer than a year it would then depend on how much exposure it got (ie. was it part shaded etc.) We have personally seen some of our own gate signs (printed more than 3 years ago) fade in less than a year but more recently subbed our 0.5mm white aluminium for a 1 metre local shop sign as a favour for a friend (with a colourful logo and text back on white) and is still perfectly useable (and still proudly displayed on her shop) after 2 years! The way we used to deal with it when retailing printed items on a market 15 years ago, is to supply for outdoor use (we used to sell a lot of grave markers – pet and human!) and offer to reprint for half price if noticeable fading is seen within a year – over 2 years of this policy, we never had any returners take us up on the offer 🙂
Other options to help protect against fading are to coat the printed sign with a UV film or UV protection spray (Subli glaze – formerly Digicoat – make a good one that has been recommended by customers who have run trials with it) and the another option would be to use outdoor vinyl for dark text over or with sublimated backgrounds or photos.
A farewell to report, as Aimiee has moved on to pastures new – we thank her for 5 years of service and wish her all the best! We now welcome 2 new starters – Ellie who is assisting in the machine and packaging departments and rescue dog Trixie, the elderly Jack Russel cross who we inherited from Carl’s mum who sadly passed away before Christmas 🙁 (sorry Carl, more females! – poor guy is surrounded lol – especially by Trixie who has adopted Carl as her saviour and follows him around faithfully all day, tripping him up lol :-))
Here’s to the weather improving further and for the country retuning too something more like normality as we all prepare for a busy spring and summer – Stay safe x
Kind Regards
Nicci, Carl, Claire, Sam, Emily, Rachel, Louise, Pippa, Caroline, Tina, Carolyn, Ellie and Petal the Doberman and Trixie the Jack Russel X – the Subli Metals team!
