Corporate Gifts Archives

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Glass Engraving, On-Site Events

On Site Engraving 2,000 Lightbulbs at Light Fair International 2018

May 17, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

On site engraving 2,000 lightbulbs at an event called Light Fair International is way beyond just another a trade show booth animation. It’s an innovative experience for tradeshow attendees that will keep people talking about your brand for years to come.

A few months ago were contacted by the Head of Customer Sales and Training for Ledvance, Robert Cilic. Their team had the idea of engraving lightbulbs at their tradeshow booth in Chicago. They had called several places and no one could do it. They even though about bringing an engraver in from Germany who specialized in this type of engraving on very thin glass. However, Rob didn’t want to give up looking more locally. We had engraved fine perfume bottles in the past as well as wine and liquor bottles. We were willing to give it a shot.

Rob sent us a pack of bulbs to try with our high speed drill. The drill’s RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) was 350,000 and it cut right through the glass. (Nothing exploded because these are LED lightbulbs filled with gas, no pressure.) One of our engravers, Meg, suggested we try a Dremel tool that only spins 35,000 RPMs, much slower. We did and it worked!

Here is a picture of the three masterminds who figured it all out and were the toast of the show, Meg, Rob and Desiree.

Rob and his team quickly put a beautiful booth plan together for us to showcase our on site engraving as well as beautiful packaging for the lamps themselves.

The on site engraving was such a hit, there were lines in the tradeshow booth all three days non-stop! We engraved lightbulbs for VIPs for companies like Home Depot and Samsung.

We were also asked to engrave on site at events each of the three nights of the conference at the Hard Rock Cafe, the Shedd Aquarium, and a media event at Bassment in downtown Chicago.

Clients loved the unique gifts at each event and wanted two or three for friends and family. The engraving never stopped the entire time we were at each event.

The best part was when a young man walked up to Desiree, our CEO and asked her to engrave a lightbulb for him to use when he asked his girlfriend to marry him. Desiree was honored to create a beautiful, engraved bulb for him right on the spot.

Desiree engraved, “You light up my life.” on one side and, “Will you marry me?” on the other. The lightbulb became the story of the show! Even the CEO, Jacob Tarn, stepped out to take a picture with the young man and Ledvance offered to give him lighting for his wedding day.

Light Fair International in Chicago was a wonderful experience for both our company and our clients. If you’re looking for a cool experience for your next trade show, on site engraving will definitely keep people in your booth and talking about your brand. They will remember you for a long time. We can engrave almost anything made of glass, metal or wood. We also offer leather embossing at events.

Contact us directly at 833 465 9311 or take a look at our event page for more information. We’d love to see where our talent and innovation will take your company!

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Engraved and Embossed Leather, Live Embossing Events, Live Monogramming Events

Golf Tournament Gifts Personalized at RBC Heritage in Hilton Head

April 18, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

Golf tournament gifts embossed on site at the RBC Heritage PGA Golf Tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina scored an ace with guests and corporate clients! It was the 50th anniversary of this popular golf event and we were invited to participate in the corporate gifting experience by embossing bags on site. We are all big fans of golf so being able to attend the event was a nice fit for both ourselves and our client, Royal Bank of Canada. You can see our embossing in action in the video below.

We worked with the Royal Bank of Canada through their marketing partner to emboss leather patches with monograms on custom-made gym bags at the golf tournament for clients and VIP guests at Harbourtown Golf Links in the VIP Clubhouse Suite.

We worked every day of the four day event and embossed over 1,000 bags. We averaged 50 to 60 per hour. We were set up at a 6 ft. table with two chairs in the corner of the clubhouse. We don’t take up much space at most events which is one of the reasons our customers love to work with us. They can always find room for a banquet table.

We were able to meet both corporate gifting clients as well as a few PGA players such as Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Graeme McDowell and Steve Scott. Our table was the most popular in the room. People put their orders in before they went out to watch the tournament and were able to pick up the bags on their way out when they left later that afternoon.

Clients especially loved the on site personalization of the golf tournament gifts we provided with our leather embossing. They couldn’t believe we could add their initials and monograms right on site at our corporate gifting table. Once word got out, even those people who didn’t have tickets to the VIP Suite tried to sneak in and get a bag!

We enjoyed meeting and talking to clients from all walks of life. The best part is people really appreciated the work we did and we were thanked many times for the personalized golf tournament gifts.

Our first golf tournament was a success and we already look forward to many more in the future. We knew we did a good job when our big boss hugged us at the end and thanked us for driving up from Atlanta especially for the event. We enjoyed meeting all of the Royal Bank of Canada executives as well.

If you need golf tournament gifts at your next event, please contact us directly at 833 465 9311 or you can view our events page fore more details (pun intended)!

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Corporate Logo Stamping, Engraved and Embossed Leather, Leather Debossing

Logo Embossing Creates an Elegant Finish on Corporate Gifts

March 9, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

Logo embossing is one of our specialties. We can create a logo stamping die from your 300 dpi vector image and hand stamp almost any item you bring to us from anywhere you purchase it. We can handle real leather and faux leather (in most cases). However, we get the best results from real leather so please keep that in mind when choosing your items.

A great example of a recent logo embossing project is pictured below. We embossed this leather file folder below for retirees from Delta Community Credit Union.

We were able to take their electronic logo file, create and cut a die and emboss it on leather file folders purchased from a local office supply store in Atlanta. Delta Community corporate sent us their logo and we created the die pictured below.

We loaded the die in our machine, heated it up to 300 degrees and hand stamped each item for about 10 seconds. We were able to turn this project around quickly. Typical logo embossing project turnaround is 7 to 10 business days.

We offer both debossing with no color and embossing with gold, silver or virtually any color foil. Here are more examples of our embossing and debossing projects. We’ve worked with many companies including Delta Air Lines, Mount Holyoke College, Mazda and Coca-Cola.

We work with large and small companies with any size order from 1 to 300 items.

We also offer on site embossing at trade shows, conventions and private events all around the country where we monogram items already stamped with a corporate logo.

If you are interested in ordering a custom logo die and having your items hand stamped with care, please contact us directly at 833 465 9311. We can’t wait to get started!

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Glass Engraving, Wine Bottle Engraving

Hand Engraved Wine Bottles for Triumph Motorcycles USA Dealers

January 29, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

Hand engraved wine bottles were the gift of choice when Triumph Motorcycles® USA decided to announce winners of their Dealer of the Year Patagonia adventure trip contest in a very unique way. Inkwell Designers were there to help make this idea come to life very quickly. We had less than two weeks to pull it all together.

Emily from Triumph Motorcycles USA headquarters found Inkwell Designers℠ online and called about getting 12 bottles of Argentinian Malbec wine engraved with the Triumph logo. She asked us to find the bottles, engrave them and deliver them to her office. We took on the challenge immediately.

What Emily didn’t know is our CEO, Desiree Colonna, is an avid Triumph motorcycle rider and owns a 2012 Triumph Bonneville which she rides are her primary bike. What a thrill to work with the company that had given her the beautiful bike she loves to ride around Atlanta!

Emily wanted the logo engraved into the bottles. We can take you through the steps we took to make that happen.

We first printed the logo and mountain scheme on architect paper which has a sticky back to it.

Then we actually stuck these where they needed to be placed on the wine bottles and used a stippling motion to engrave over them. The logo and mountains are made of hundreds of hand stippled dots. This is very different from etching or sandblasting where you need a special toxic cream or machine to do the work. These wine bottles are all engraved by hand with great care.

Once we finished the stippling, we added the hand engraved calligraphy. All of this was created with a dental drill handpiece. This is the final result.

We also had our calligraphy artist, Meg Mitchell, create thank you notes by hand for each dealer which were included with the hand engraved wine bottles.

The hand engraved wine bottles were a huge hit around the office when we delivered them in person. We were treated to a tour of all the fun motorcycles in the office which was a highlight for Desiree and her husband, Joe.

There was even a very cool wall of Triumph history with various iterations of their logo and bikes throughout the years.

Desiree’s favorite bike was the custom bike with the wooden seat created for a movie.

We took this project from idea to reality and made the process so easy for Emily at Triumph. We found the bottles, picked them up, engraved them and then delivered them. All she had to do was make the call!

Our hand engraved wine bottles are the perfect gift for any occasion, both corporate and personal. If you’re interested in learning more about our process, please contact us directly at 833 465 9311 or shoot us an email. We’d love to work with you!

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Engraved and Embossed Leather, Leather Monogramming, On-Site Events

Monogramming Event for American Express at the International Builders’ Show

January 11, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

Our monogramming event, sponsored by American Express®, was a big hit at the International Builder’s Show in Orlando, FL. We monogrammed over 250 luggage tags for guests at the debut of the New American Home in Clermont, FL.

Our office for the evening was in this gorgeous $5.5 million dollar home. This was the view at sunset when we drove up.

American Express contacted us in November 2017 to book us for the monogramming event in January 2018. We were very pleased to work with their team. They wanted to hand out luggage tags which would we personalized on-site for each person who attended the event. Guests were given a choice of brown or navy tags and the monogram was hot stamped onto the leather right in front of them which added to the excitement! They were also able to choose between gold and silver foil.

Here is a video of how our set-up looked and how we interacted with guests at the monogramming event.

Here are some highlights from the New American Home. It was a beautiful night as you can see from the images.

We were actually set up in the office on the first floor of the home where we monogrammed each luggage tag by hand for almost every guest. The line went out the door and never stopped for the 4 hours we were there.

This is a picture of Joe and I before we started working the monogramming event. We couldn’t help but take a selfie with this beautiful home in the background.

The luggage tags were so popular, when we got back to our office in Atlanta, we were still getting calls from people at the event who wanted to order more for their staff and coworkers. It doesn’t surprise us. People really love getting personalized swag at events as we learned at our Cisco event.

If you have an event you would like to have us monogram items at and you really want to have the most popular booth there, we’d love to work with you! Please take a look at our event page for more information and then give us a call or text us at 833 465 9311.

Blog, Corporate Gifts, Holiday Gifts, Liquor Bottle Engraving, Unique Gifts, Whiskey Bottle Engraving

Engraved Whiskey Bottles Popular Corporate Gifts

January 1, 2018 By Desiree Colonna

Engraved whiskey bottles are very popular corporate gifts, especially during the holidays. You know you’ve really been good when someone gives you a gift like that!

This season, we had two corporate clients work with us to create engraved whiskey bottles using our new sandblasting and hand engraving services.

One client, who works for Merrill Lynch, wanted to give her boss an amazing gift this holiday season. She contacted us and asked us to help her find a engraved whiskey bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue on which she wanted add his name.

She didn’t want calligraphy, she wanted an actual block font. We were able to find another company to partner with to sandblast the exact font she wanted on the bottle.

The engraved whiskey bottles we create really impress clients. Sometimes they don’t even drink what is inside because they love the look of the bottle so much. A lot of our engraved whiskey bottles are still sitting on top of the bar in a prominent place, never opened.

Another client wanted an engraved whiskey bottle for her father-in-law. Although the top was round, we were able to fit her message perfectly around the perimeter using our hand engraving techniques. We can engrave almost any glass surface with our dental drill and it doesn’t hurt the glass or, most importantly, contents inside!

Another engraving technique we use is to completely remove the label and recreate it with sandblasting for a very unique look. We can really personalize these by adding the “name” of the person to the label itself. Here are some examples below.

We engrave bottles all year long for birthdays, anniversaries as well as private and corporate events. (If you are looking for something other than whiskey, we engrave wine bottles too.) Contact us directly at 833 465 9311 to order your special gift today!