Five Dollar Shake ...on Stardream

Many readers of this blog will have purchased a greeting card or two from this remarkable greeting card publisher, Five Dollar Shake. Based in Hastings and established in 1998, they design and manufacture all their cards in the UK, including the application of the crystals, sequins, bows and trinkets that many of their ranges are renowned for.  

This new range of cards is produced on a bespoke production of our lovely Stardream board, made by Cordenons in Italy. For those not familiar, Stardream is a pearlescent/metallic range which shimmers beautifully. The board for these cards is made especially with a stripy emboss (called Cannetè) with a coloured reverse (see below pic) which complements the outside of the card, enabling a message to be written inside with ink or ballpoint pen.

The size of the cards is 160mm square. This particular range of cards is hot foil blocked only, the 'appy birthday card (above) in four different foil colours! The cards are also embossed on the foiled area and you can see the wonderful depth of embossing on this 80th Birthday card...



The "Henries" are the awards for the greeting card industry (named after the inventor of the greeting card - Sir Henry Cole) - their industry equivalent of the D&AD Awards (www.thehenriesawards.co.uk) and Five Dollar Shake have won over twenty awards in the last fifteen years ...pretty amazing stuff!
Creative director at Five Dollar Shake is Beth Genower.

These cards are exquisitely hot foil blocked and embossed by Robert Armstrong, who is based in Keighley, Yorkshire. Intricate and impeccably produced.

http://www.fivedollarshake.com/

robertarmstrong59@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.cordenons.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.03.2014

Stardream - Fine Gold

Earlier this year we took over UK distribution of Stardream from Robert Horne (see my previous post: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/stardream-some-exciting-news.html). Since then, we have been working closely with the Italian manufacturer Cordenons, to further develop the product. An exciting development is a brand new shade called Fine Gold, which is amazing and looks just like ...gold!

It comes in 120gsm and 285gsm and is available from stock right now!  It joins the two other shades, Gold and Antique Gold plus the 29 other pearlescent and metallic shades in the range. 

 

If you would like samples of the new shade or if you haven't already got a swatch and would like one, just give me a call or send an e-mail.

www.cordenons.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 25.09.2012

Toby Marchant exits Paperlinx

Yesterday, Paperlinx announced the resignation of its chief executive, Toby Marchant (did he jump or was he pushed?) For those that don't know, he's been the guy at the head of Australian based Paperlinx. If you're wondering what that's got to do with this blog and you - it's because they own Robert Horne, Howard Smith and The Paper Co -names of UK paper merchants which many of you will be familiar with. 

Toby Marchant started as a paper merchant in the UK, eventually becoming Managing Director of the loss making Modo Merchants (now closed down). He jumped ship at the end of the 90's to the profitable Robert Horne Group and after overseeing years of declining profitability, he was promoted (!) through the ranks of  the parent company, Paperlinx, ending up as CEO (...nice work!)

For Paperlinx, which a decade ago was worth more than (Aus)$2 Billion (-yes, you did read that correctly), there are many issues - it now has a market capitalisation of only (Aus)$25 Million (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) - having recently sold off operations in South Africa, Italy and Eastern Europe, it is contending with hostile shareholders trying to reverse several years of corporate losses and it's bankers. Suppliers appear to be withdrawing products; Zanders have withdrawn Chromolux, ArjoWiggins have stopped supplying their recycled ranges, Cordenons have withdrawn their Stardream range and suppliers are struggling to get credit insurance cover. Other executives including Malcolm Lane-Ley, Managing Director of Howard Smith and The PaperCo is also leaving at the end of this month.

Robert Horne Paper was the revered company in the UK paper industry, as a supplier, customer and employer. I was fortunate enough to meet Kenneth Horne in 1995 and I even bought the book he published "Somebody said that it couldn't be done" which documented his three decades at the helm of the company founded by his grandfather - and make no mistake, it was a great company. It will certainly be sad for the UK industry if the end result of Paperlinx involvement means that this and the sister companies simply disappear.

Hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs have been lost in the UK paper industry in recent years. I hope that Toby Marchant, who is set to receive a "banker style" golden goodbye of one year's salary (after only 2 years as CEO) will reflect on this whilst lying on his sun lounger!

http://www.smh.com.au/business/news-takes-a-page-from-paperlinx-20120717-228fo.html
www.paperlinx.com
http://www.printweek.com/bulletin/printweekdailybulletin/article/1141767/paperlinxs-toby-marchant-give-interim-chief-executive-dave-allen/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.07.2012

28th September Update
Printweek reports today that Marchant ended his employment with Paperlinx on a salary of £363,545 after he took a 15% voluntary pay cut on 1 April (April Fools day!) this year. Tobes gets 12 months salary as part of his "mutual" decision to leave the company. On top of this, he was given £26,000 in accrued entitlements to bonuses for completed asset sales in 2011/2012 and £21,648 to compensate for untaken annual leave. I'm sure everyone in Northampton will be pleased to know that he'll be comfortably off in his retirement.
http://www.printweek.com/news/1152474/Paperlinx-AGM-postponed-chairman-leaves-prematurely/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

===============================================
10th October 2012 - Important update
A link to an Australian website run by a Paperlinx shareholder has been REMOVED from this post, following a legal notice sent to me by a solicitor acting for Paperlinx Limited.
I have written about this on the following post:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/paperlinx-gets-stroppy.html
===============================================
As with everything written on this blog, the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to Fenner Paper Company Ltd!

Stardream ..some exciting news!

As most regular readers will know, I don't write this blog to shamelessly 'flog' our papers and I rarely just plug our products ...but I'm going to now!

I'm very pleased to announce here that we (here at Fenner Paper) are now the UK stockists of STARDREAM.

For many of you, Stardream will need no introduction, it's the market leading pearlescent and metallic paper range produced by the Cordenons paper mill in Italy. Many people have become fans of the light irridescent finishes and the dual sided deep metallic finishes which do truly shimmer.

...and it comes in 31 shimmering shades! 

Stardream is used for a wide range of applications, including cover, presentation folders, Invitations, greetings cards, luxury packaging and a whole host of other stuff that I haven't thought of!

As well as being available in the 31 shades, it comes in a good weight range. All items are available in 120gsm and 285gsm with some of the most popular items also available in 340gsm board and a 110gsm one sided (particularly used for luxury packaging - paper over board boxes and casebound covers). And if that weren't enough, the range also includes three embossings, Orion, Seta and Cannetè.

You can see the whole range here: http://www.cordenons.co.uk/

..and here's our lovely new swatch...

One of the most important things about these ranges is good availability and we certainly don't want to disappoint! So, we have put every single item of the mill's stock range into our warehouse here in Tonbridge, so availability should be truly excellent (- we hope!)

Here's a picture of the Cordenons mill and paper machine in Italy:








...and there's even a picture of me shaking hands at the mill on our new agreement, with the mill's (special) agent Terry Wakeman.

If you would like to receive one of the new Stardream swatches, just email me (justin@fennerpaper.co.uk) and I'll pop one in the post.

http://www.cordenons.co.uk/
http://www.gruppocordenons.com/en/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.05.2012