Success at Custom Candy Bar Wrapping

The very day Miller's Wrapped Expression placed an ad on Craiglist under the category Baby-Kids and titling my ad Birthday, Birth Announcements, Shower, a young woman contacted me.
"Are those the only ones you have?" she asked regarding the four sample wrappers I was limited to uploading. Knowing this was a good hook, a great prospect I assured her they weren't.

She emailed to say she was in need of birth announcements to hand out to everyone after her daughter gave birth to the little baby girl she's pregnant with. She selected a background from a couple I emailed and wrote she'd like to have the baby's name included on the wrapper.

With all information in hand, I set to work. Within thirty minutes, I had a nice looking wrapper to go around a standard size chocolate bar.

The client loved them and why not? Miller's Wrapped Expression customized the candy bar wrapper to suit her needs and to her specifications. And so happy was she that she placed another order for miniature candy bar wrappers and a diaper cake.

Thank you, Dollie, for giving me opportunities to serve and help you. And thank you to Digi Web Studio for great clip art. Visit them at http://www.digiwebstudio.com/store/.

How to Make Your Own Personalized Candy Wrapper

I have added a page called Candy Wrapping Tips and Ideas to my web site... It will take time to grow as I replace an old tip on the home page and archive it in the Tips & Ideas page.

Did you know you can make personalized custom candy wrappers in a word program?

To size the wrapper:

Choose the candy bar of your choice. Unwrap it being careful not to tear the paper. (Of course you must eat the candy!) And if it does tear, no biggy...

Lay it on a flat surface then get your ruler and measure the width and length.

Add about 1/8 of an inch to all sides because you're not going to remove the original candy bar wrappers from the candy bars. Instead, you are going to wrap your wrapper around the all ready wrapped candy bar.
Measure the front of the wrapper that is indicated by the folds. This will be the front of your wrapper.

Get started creating:

After you've written all your measurements down, take your notes and the original wrapper to your computer and open a new document in a word program. In page settings, change the measurements to your measurements plus .25 inch both width and height.

Create a text box for the front using the measurements your wrote down. Use the original wrapper you removed from the candy bar as a guide. Center the front text box side to side.

Center the front text box top to bottom. Now move it up about 1/4 inch. You don't want it exactly centered because of the glue area.

You might find a border to be useful for cutting the wrapper to size.

Also, you might find it easier to create text boxes to hold your images. The text boxes are easier to move around.

When wrapping candy bars that have edges not folded or glued under - like a Hershey (R) bar - you'll like the appearance of your finished product better if you fold the edges of the original wrapper under.

I made several mistakes when I first started making my own personalized candy wrappers. But with practice and effort, printing and test wrapping, I honed the skill.

Got questions? Leave a comment...

Personalized Custom Candy Wrapping Website

I'm not a professional web designer. I know very little about how to get a web site known and have been studying up on the subject through Google's help and web master centers. My personalized custom candy wrap web site, Miller's Wrapped Expression at https://sites.google.com/site/millerswrappedexpression/, gets no traffic.

It's clear to me as to why. 1) There's not a gazillion people demanding personalized custom candy wrappers here in the Midwest. 2) There are tens of thousands of people all over the world wrapping candy bars, etc. who have had web sites for years.

One suggestion Google made is to exchange links with other candy wrap web sites or sites with similar content. The reasoning is sound: The more web sites you have your company's name on (with a link) the more chance someone will find you.

Guess what my next goal is.

Imperfect Dreams - Lilly illustration by Deborah A. Miller

I told you in an earlier post I enjoy being artistic. My life centers around thinking up creative things to do.

Last week, I took an old cork bulletin board, covered it with left over fabric we used to redo kitchen chairs then hung it behind our kitchen stove. It serves as a back-splash but it also adds color to our otherwise white walls. I took more of the same material and made a small valance for a kitchen window which ties into the back-splash.

I found an outdated calendar with pictures of flowers. I traced these flowers (above) onto the appropriate paper then painted them with acrylic paints. I will use this for a candy wrap or perhaps a candle applique.

In between creating paper face-plate covers, painting pictures, cleaning and caring for animals last week, I also began to experiment in making drink looking candles. They aren't perfect, the top of the chocolate drink candle is concave but who cares? I uploaded the picture to CraigsList and stated in the description that I am not a professional candle maker; I do it for fun. If someone purchases one, two, three or more, that bonus will be added to the fun I had creating them.

In the mean time, I will continue to create and building an inventory of everything I enjoy doing. I foresee a garage sale this summer in which much of the inventory will be priced and hopefully sold.

After all, the more people you show your stuff to the better chance you have of selling. Right?

Finding Inspiration in the House & Copyrights

I look around the house for things to scan to use in my candy wrapper designs.

I've scanned things like western place mats, old family pictures, bits of lace from my grandmother's handkerchiefs and even part of a sand painting. Of course, with things like the place mat and the sand painting I have to alter them as to not infringe on the copyrights of the piece.

This has been done in advertising through the ages. But it doesn't stop with advertising. Songs writers get inspiration from other songs, alter and change one up. Writers get inspired by other writings; use ideas and change them up. It's against the law to use another's work in verbatim and with its (basic) inception, the copyright begins. That's not technically true but it's something I try and live by.

Were I to come up with an idea and voice it someone before I even have it on paper I would be pretty upset if they used my idea. If they had asked if they could use my idea I might say yes. This would give them permission. I might put restrictions on their use of my idea.

However, the moment my idea is on paper it is copyrighted. Usage of other people's work without their permission is a no-no. That is to say unless they have given specific permission and have given specific instructions on how the piece can be used.

There are many clipart artists out there who do just that. Yet there are many artists who merely ask that you provide a link on your website to their website. Others will ask you to simply give them credit.

It's touchy and it's tricky. But if you understand their rights as well as your own, you should be okay. It's just a matter of a little research and reading.

The Bad Dreams

I don't want all of my dreams to come true. Those infrequent bad dreams I have while I sleep I would just as soon forget.

Two nights ago, I dreamt John, my husband, ordered me to get back to work. He didn't simply order me, he screamed at me to get back to work. You would have to know John to know that he would never do that. He might quietly suggest I go back to work. Or he might point out a job suited to me. More than likely he would say nothing.

But that dream haunted me throughout the day. I heard his loud, demanding voice which really was nothing more than my own guilt hollering at me to find some way to help with financial income. Naturally, I set about working to ignore the voice in my head and sat in front of the computer working on custom candy bar wrappers.

This helped tremendously as I felt I was doing something toward my candy wrapping business. The two wrappers I designed I posted to my website: Miller's Wrapped Expression. Once I completed that I worked to find ways to get the crud out of the textured linoleum in our kitchen since vinegar and water wasn't doing the trick.

Know what did? Greased Lightning (TM) did it. The floor now looks really clean. I held the nearly empty bottle eye level working to come up with another use for it. Sure enough, with bottle and rag in hand I cleaned dirty smudges and finger prints from the doors in the house.

Now I'm out of Greased Lightning (TM) and have to go out today in the bitter winter cold (it's minus one as I type) to buy more. This also means I will have to shovel the end of the driveway so my small car won't get high centered leaving me stuck half way in the street.

But I managed to quiet that stupid voice in my head yesterday!

Latest Creation

I thought I had an original idea but come to find out - after searching on the Internet for something - my idea wasn't original.

I had taken discarded egg shells and made votive candles out of them. But first I sealed the shells then painted them with acrylic paints. After inserting wicks, melting and pouring the wax into the shells, I let them rest and waited impatiently for the wax to harden.

I was finally able to light them and was happily surprised to see the shell color glow with the acrylic colors. I won't let the fact that the idea wasn't original stop me from marketing them (along with the personalized custom candy bar wrappers I have created) to gift shops. If they will allow me, I will leave samples for their customers as well as my business cards. Retailers love freebies to give out so there shouldn't be any problems in placing the samples.


Now whether or not consumers will find the egg shell votives and candy wrappers worthy of purchase is the question yet to be answered. But my marketing experience tells me the more I place the better chance of someone buying one or the other or both. After all, it's all about the numbers. The more people or businesses you introduce yourself to the better of success.

With that, I need to finish up all my votive samples I have created for Valentines Day along with my portfolio of candy bar wrappers.