The really great thing about these signs is they can be used for some many different occasions. They are not limited to birthdays. Want to tell your Dad "Happy Retirement"? The old man sign can do it!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Two new signs.
When we first purchased the business we had an old man sign and an old woman sign that were made out of wood. They were super heavy so we decided to discontinue them. Recently we were able to design our own old man sign and old woman sign with the help of Evan at Flamingo Factory. These are much nicer than the old heavy wooden ones.
The really great thing about these signs is they can be used for some many different occasions. They are not limited to birthdays. Want to tell your Dad "Happy Retirement"? The old man sign can do it!
The really great thing about these signs is they can be used for some many different occasions. They are not limited to birthdays. Want to tell your Dad "Happy Retirement"? The old man sign can do it!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Flamingo socks
We found some really cool Flamingo socks thanks to SockGrams on Twitter. Thought you would all like to see them. http://sockgrams.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_13&products_id=18
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Madison Wisconsin's Official Bird
On September 1st, 2009 the Madison, Wisconsin City Council voted 15-4 to recognize the plastic pink flamingo as the official city bird. I too wondered why and went on a fact finding mission of sorts. Here is what I learned.
In the late 70's at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Jim Mallon and Stu D. Baker became the founding members of the Pail and Shovel Party. In 1978, they ran for student council. One of their campaign promises was to convert the school's budget into pennies which would be spread on Library Mall for students to collect with pails and shovels. They were elected. The pair were responsible for many pranks at the school at the expense of the student government's budget. One of these pranks involved planting 1008 pink flamingos on Bascom Hill in the fall of 1979.
In April of this year, the Wisconsin Historical Museum's Odd Wisconsin exhibit was commemorating the 30th anniversary of the prank with pink flamingo sunglasses for visitors. Doug Moe, a writer for the Wisconsin State Journal, wrote a piece on the museum's exhibit and thought is was a good time to propose making the pink flamingo Madison's official bird. In fact Moe had proposed the same thing in 2006 when the company that created the pink flamingo announced it was closing. Apparently this time Ald. Marsha Rummel thought the idea was worthwhile. She was the sponsor of the resolution. After 5 minutes of debate a vote was held and the pink flamingo won!
UW-Madison student Joan O’Donnell snacks on Bascom Hill surrounded by 1,008 plastic flamingos Sept. 5, 1979.
In the late 70's at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Jim Mallon and Stu D. Baker became the founding members of the Pail and Shovel Party. In 1978, they ran for student council. One of their campaign promises was to convert the school's budget into pennies which would be spread on Library Mall for students to collect with pails and shovels. They were elected. The pair were responsible for many pranks at the school at the expense of the student government's budget. One of these pranks involved planting 1008 pink flamingos on Bascom Hill in the fall of 1979.
In April of this year, the Wisconsin Historical Museum's Odd Wisconsin exhibit was commemorating the 30th anniversary of the prank with pink flamingo sunglasses for visitors. Doug Moe, a writer for the Wisconsin State Journal, wrote a piece on the museum's exhibit and thought is was a good time to propose making the pink flamingo Madison's official bird. In fact Moe had proposed the same thing in 2006 when the company that created the pink flamingo announced it was closing. Apparently this time Ald. Marsha Rummel thought the idea was worthwhile. She was the sponsor of the resolution. After 5 minutes of debate a vote was held and the pink flamingo won!
UW-Madison student Joan O’Donnell snacks on Bascom Hill surrounded by 1,008 plastic flamingos Sept. 5, 1979.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Lawn Greetings going strong in tough economic times.
We have all heard on the news how bad the economy is and maybe even some of you have been affected by it but there are some industries that are still enjoying growth. One of those is the Lawn Greeting industry. The Lawn Greetings industry is defined as small businesses which help their customers celebrate various occasions and events by renting displays that are set up in a recipient’s yard. The displays vary greatly from giant wooden character signs and small "critter" signs, as they are referred to in the industry, to a wide array of elements for decorating a front yard such as 3D plastic or 2D wood and coroplast characters/shapes that include from the most popular, plastic pink flamingos, to the more obscure, plastic cows or over the hill themes, to the more traditional, stork signs for announcing births.
A recent discussion on the Lawn Greeting Association forums shows that the industry is still growing despite the economic downturn. Seven of the eight companies that commented on the discussion said that they were pleased with the number of deliveries they were doing. Tom of Special-Delivery 4 U in Muskego, Wisconsin mentioned seeing a 25% growth in sales for May compared to May 2008 with an additional 20% in June 2009. Janice of Front Yard Friends in Chesapeake, Virgina said "We had 30 yards in one night plus all of the pick ups from the night before ( 22). I honestly don't remember doing that many before but maybe we did." Cindi from Coastal Yard Cards in Sussex County, Delaware reports a 50% increase in sales for the month of June 2009 compared to last year at the same time. She thinks a new improved website helped with sales traffic. "A good web presence and search engine results are a key factor to getting your business out to the public". Cindi also says that while it is difficult in her area to spread the word about Lawn Greetings due to being the only business of it's kind in more than half of the state, she thinks once people actually see what Coastal Yard Cards offers, they absolutely love it and want to order a rental for their next occasion !
Not only is the industry seeing record sales, there are new companies starting up. Cheryl of Monkey In My Pocket Designs Yard Celebrations in Dutchess County, New York said "I have only been open for about a month so I don't have any of last year's figures to compare but I rented out 26 displays for May and I already have 32 orders for the month of June."
Even companies that specialize in birth announcements are doing well according to Amy of Special Deliveries in Pleasanton, California. She says "I am busier than I have ever been before. I don't have numbers, but for the last couple of months I have been doing 2-3 rentals a week (all mine are 1 week rentals)."
There are a little more than 840,000 people celebrating a birthday everyday of the year in the United States. In addition to that there are anniversaries, engagements, weddings, births & graduations throughout the year. Each one of those special occasions is a chance for a Lawn Greeting company to rent a display. It's really no wonder why the Lawn Greeting industry is still going strong and even growing in these tough economic times.
A recent discussion on the Lawn Greeting Association forums shows that the industry is still growing despite the economic downturn. Seven of the eight companies that commented on the discussion said that they were pleased with the number of deliveries they were doing. Tom of Special-Delivery 4 U in Muskego, Wisconsin mentioned seeing a 25% growth in sales for May compared to May 2008 with an additional 20% in June 2009. Janice of Front Yard Friends in Chesapeake, Virgina said "We had 30 yards in one night plus all of the pick ups from the night before ( 22). I honestly don't remember doing that many before but maybe we did." Cindi from Coastal Yard Cards in Sussex County, Delaware reports a 50% increase in sales for the month of June 2009 compared to last year at the same time. She thinks a new improved website helped with sales traffic. "A good web presence and search engine results are a key factor to getting your business out to the public". Cindi also says that while it is difficult in her area to spread the word about Lawn Greetings due to being the only business of it's kind in more than half of the state, she thinks once people actually see what Coastal Yard Cards offers, they absolutely love it and want to order a rental for their next occasion !
Not only is the industry seeing record sales, there are new companies starting up. Cheryl of Monkey In My Pocket Designs Yard Celebrations in Dutchess County, New York said "I have only been open for about a month so I don't have any of last year's figures to compare but I rented out 26 displays for May and I already have 32 orders for the month of June."
Even companies that specialize in birth announcements are doing well according to Amy of Special Deliveries in Pleasanton, California. She says "I am busier than I have ever been before. I don't have numbers, but for the last couple of months I have been doing 2-3 rentals a week (all mine are 1 week rentals)."
There are a little more than 840,000 people celebrating a birthday everyday of the year in the United States. In addition to that there are anniversaries, engagements, weddings, births & graduations throughout the year. Each one of those special occasions is a chance for a Lawn Greeting company to rent a display. It's really no wonder why the Lawn Greeting industry is still going strong and even growing in these tough economic times.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Flamingonapping Foiled!
On Friday July 3rd, our flamingo flock flew out to Pretty Lake in Dousman, Wisconsin to surprise a birthday girl. Since fifty of them went they created quite a scene and had many people stopping by to take pictures and to just adore them in general. According to the customer the lake was packed with visitors and party-goers since it was the Fourth of July. Here is what happened in his words.
"My son and daughter (both college students) had friends over and they camped out in the yard in tents.
On Saturday night, the kids discovered 4 flamingos behind the neighbor's garage -- kidnapped by some of the teenage party-goers next door. They were immediately rescued and returned to the flock. Thinking that all was well, my daughter was keeping a keen eye out not too far from the flock. At about 12:30AM, two middle aged women drove by on a four wheeler and stopped in front of our lot. They sat there for a while in the dark while my daughter crouched behind a car parked near our cottage. One of the women began slowing crawling (army style) from the edge of our our property towards the flock. My daughter popped up and yelled "you better not be thinking about stealing a flamingo!" The two women were startled, laughed a bit and sped off on the four wheeler."
Now that is keeping an eye on the flock. Fortunately there were no more attempts of flaminonapping and the flock returned home safely!
"My son and daughter (both college students) had friends over and they camped out in the yard in tents.
On Saturday night, the kids discovered 4 flamingos behind the neighbor's garage -- kidnapped by some of the teenage party-goers next door. They were immediately rescued and returned to the flock. Thinking that all was well, my daughter was keeping a keen eye out not too far from the flock. At about 12:30AM, two middle aged women drove by on a four wheeler and stopped in front of our lot. They sat there for a while in the dark while my daughter crouched behind a car parked near our cottage. One of the women began slowing crawling (army style) from the edge of our our property towards the flock. My daughter popped up and yelled "you better not be thinking about stealing a flamingo!" The two women were startled, laughed a bit and sped off on the four wheeler."
Now that is keeping an eye on the flock. Fortunately there were no more attempts of flaminonapping and the flock returned home safely!
Monday, June 29, 2009
May set a record
Special-Delivery 4 U LLC sets a new company record for set ups. The previous record was set in May 2008 with 27. May 2009 saw a 25% increase in set ups to 36. June has already blown past May but the final numbers will not be in until later this week. Watch here for the news.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Our first baby & toddler expo
Today we attended our first baby & toddler expo. It was held at the Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay. It was also their first baby & toddler expo so we were in good company. LOL. Everything went well. We had an awesome location for our booth and were really happy with it. Since it was our first one we learned a few things. One of which is get a bigger booth next time. We had enough room for what we brought but were a bit cramped. Here is a picture of our booth.
As you can see in the picture the chairs were in front of the signs....not a very good idea if we want people to see the signs. Fortunately we had a computer monitor running a slide show of some of our displays on the table so people could still see the displays. Another thing we learned is that big men scare little toddlers. LOL. I tried to hand out smiley face stickers and not to many kids would take them from me. However they were more than happy to take one from Sheri. Go figure. Hahaha.
We will be doing another baby & toddler expo in September at a different location. We are looking forward to that one.
As you can see in the picture the chairs were in front of the signs....not a very good idea if we want people to see the signs. Fortunately we had a computer monitor running a slide show of some of our displays on the table so people could still see the displays. Another thing we learned is that big men scare little toddlers. LOL. I tried to hand out smiley face stickers and not to many kids would take them from me. However they were more than happy to take one from Sheri. Go figure. Hahaha.
We will be doing another baby & toddler expo in September at a different location. We are looking forward to that one.
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