Things to Keep in Mind when Customizing Christmas Ornaments

Are you looking for personalized Christmas ornaments this holiday season? Christmas is fast approaching — in fact, it will be here before we know it. Get a head start on your Christmas tree decor or holiday shopping by placing your order for personalized ornaments sooner than later.

Wondering where to begin? We have a few things for you to keep in mind when designing your ornaments with Calliope Designs. 

Theme of Custom Christmas Ornament

There are many choices of personalized Christmas ornaments available from Calliope Designs. Some like to keep it classic with ornaments featuring the whole family around a tree. Family members can be featured standing together, or presented as penguins, bears, and other fun holiday characters. Many families make this a tradition, and delight in seeing the ornaments on their tree year after year.

It can also be fun to change up the theme of your ornament, depending on an event or milestone that took place during the year. Vacations, engagements, and new jobs are all themes available on CalliopeDesigns.com.

Number of Family Members

If you are hoping to fit everyone in on your personalized Christmas ornament, take a look at the different family member options Calliope Designs provides on our website:

• Couples
• Family of 3
• Family of 4
• Family of 5
• Family of 6
• Family of 7+

We’ll make sure to recognize all of your loved ones within your personalized Christmas ornament. 

Names of Family Members

Once you nail down the number of people to be displayed on your ornament, don’t forget to double-check the spelling of their names! Names will be hand-painted onto your ornament, making it the perfect keepsake for years to come.

We often see parents using “Mom” and “Dad” instead of their names — it is up to you how you want to personalize your 2019 ornaments!

Don’t Forget the Date

After you have double checked the spelling of your family members’ names, don’t forget to include the year! Including the date is the perfect addition to your customized Christmas ornament, especially on “baby’s first Christmas” ornaments and those with a vacation theme. Every year you hang it on your tree, you will be taken back in time to that specific time and all of those wonderful memories.

Include a Photo in Your Custom Ornament

Another fantastic way to personalize your Calliope Designs custom Christmas ornament is with a photo frame. Not only will names and year be documented on your ornament, but you will have a visual element to include with it. 

Personalize Your Calliope Designs Ornament Today!

Well, what are you waiting for? September is almost over, meaning the holidays are just around the corner. It is time to nail down those details and get those personalized ornament orders in! Whether you are giving an ornament as a holiday gift or plan to hang them on your tree this year, getting started now is the way to go.
Spend some time looking through all of the different themes and options available for your ornaments, nail down the personalized details, and place your order today. You’ll soon discover why Calliope Designs has been a trusted resource for personalized Christmas ornaments for over 44 years!

When you have the opportunity, why not start at the top?

What’s the Original Calliope Ornament Neiman Marcus Featured?

Neiman Marcus was the first department store to sell Calliope Designs personalized ornaments in the United States. The buyers found us at The Beckman Gift Show of Handcrafted products in 1977, and knew immediately our darling little handmade dough ornaments would be well received in Texas, as well in the many other cities where Neiman Marcus stores were located. In these years having a Christmas store within a department store was not a big trend. Most ornaments were purchased by the box at a local drug store or at a seasonal pool patio shop that would change over to Christmas ornaments in December. But the talented buyers at Neiman Marcus knew their customers appreciated fine quality items, the latest designs, and would pay a premium for handmade products. And they knew the eclectic themed Christmas tree was in style – trees that were covered with personal items, small dolls, toys, handmade children’s crafts, strings of popcorn, and fun family items. They knew our ornaments would be a wonderful addition to their growing concept of a beautiful Christmas tree ornament department.

And our ornaments were a hit as they had projected! Customers loved the whimsical designs created by Dorr Eddy our company’s designer. The selection always included baby ornaments and wedding ornaments, some angels, teddy bear styles, and snowmen. In addition to our traditional line of products, we created a custom design each year of a Western theme, for Texas of course, of a Cowboy Santa.

This ornament became our signature product in the Neiman Marcus chain of stores and was offered as well in the world famous Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog. Our Santa Cowboy had a certain look – a big white Stetson hat with a candy cane band. He wore a red shirt with a green fringed vest with a star on his chest of course. His legs were covered with white chaps, and he wore wonderful cowboy boots. Santa still had his beard and mustache, and twinkly blue eyes, but he was a Rootin Tootin Santa and he inhabited the Neiman Marcus catalog each Christmas for 29 years.

And this is truly how a collection begins! Each year Santa would be doing something different. The first one was riding on a bucking bronco, holding his rope in one hand and hanging on for dear life with his other hand. We were sure to put the year on the ornament – very important – and this design was so successful we were making them as fast as we could, just barely keeping up with their sales week by week. The next year Santa Cowboy was riding a long-horned steer. In 1979 Santa drove a wonderful Stagecoach, and in 1980 he sat on top of the gushing oil of a Texas oil well. The years went on and on – and each year Santa did something Texan and something fun, and people from all walks of life looked forward to the catalog to see what he would be doing next.

In around 1980 we partnered with Neiman Marcus in beginning a personalization program so that these little Santa’s could have a name as well as the year added for each customer. An instantly popular parent and grandparent gift for children that greatly expanded our sales, and made us really happy that we could make a better product for each customer by including personalization.

The Santas kept coming – Santa drove a Covered Wagon, he sat on a western fence, he held a bag of toys, he was in a wreath with one of his reindeer. One year he piloted a red airplane, wearing his big white Stetson hat all the while, and another year he drove a train. He drove a red model T, went cowboy skiing, raced on a Palomino, and had a Rootin Tootin Christmas with his six-shooters.

I think we could have gone on forever with adorable creations just exclusively for Neiman Marcus, but as in life, all things must change, and our successful partnership came to an end. To this day we still receive orders from many of our lovely customers from Neiman Marcus who had to search long and hard to find us on the world wide web. We receive delightful Christmas cards and notes and emails from customers who have purchased for their children – who are now adults, and some who are now purchasing for their grandchildren. All in all, our 29 years with a partnership between Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog and Calliope Designs was a very happy and satisfying endeavor, one of which we are proud.

Some tales of how a little “in the kitchen business” got started are just too much fun! I imagine everyone who has ever owned a business has that moment when they know, just KNOW, that it’s going to be successful. For Calliope Designs, it was the year – 1976. The place – The Blue Whale Design Center in Los Angeles. The occasion – The Beckman Gift Show of Handcrafted Items. Our products – personalized Christmas ornaments for the Wholesale gift shop trade.

Started at the Bottom, Now We’re Everywhere!

Perhaps many of our readers don’t really know how gift shops and department stores find all of the wonderful items they have to offer for sale. How they are continuously finding new and different products, and constantly getting the best and most popular gift to sell in their stores. The two main ways buyers find merchandise is 1) Gift Shows held in 13 different cities around the United States each winter and summer, and 2) Sales Representative organizations who bring samples and pictures of products to the buyer to obtain an order. When a company like Calliope Designs is just starting out they will often sign up for and attend a Gift Show. These are usually held in large convention centers in the major market locations, such as Los Angeles. And that is exactly what we had done to test out our designs to the gift shop and department store buyers. The Beckman Gift Show of Handcrafted Items was filled with crafts from pottery to jewelry, blown glass to hand made Christmas ornaments! And everything in between that could possibly be handmade in America and for sale in stores everywhere.

The Gift Show requires attendance for five full days. Each vendor has a display space either 10′ X 10′, or 20′ X 10′ depending on the size of your product line. A sample of every single product the company makes is on display – so a nice booth has to be built, and a display set up for the buyers to make their selections. Printed color catalogs and price lists need to be prepared to be passed out to buyers. Business cards and samples to pass out also come in handy. It’s often a new company’s first opportunity to introduce themselves to the Gift Industry in a professional way, so everything about the Show has to be planned to make a great first impression of professional mixed with reliability.

Set up for a trade show usually takes 2 days. This is the time all of the samples and display materials are delivered to space in the convention center that will be the company’s booth. All the boxes have to be unpacked and all materials and boxes saved for “tear down” at the end of the show. It’s a big messy job! Then the display gets set up first, and the samples added to the walls and the various tables, chairs, and selling materials set out. This sounds easy, but it’s stressful. Everyone in the whole places is hammering and rushing, there is usually no air conditioning or heat, and it’s a total mess. The big challenge is to get everything done in time, to make a fabulous display to make the best possible impression on potential buyers and to get all cleaned up and ready to go on time.

The gift show itself opens on a Saturday morning and goes on all day from 9-6 for Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The buyers stream in the door at the beginning and continue to arrive all during the day, walking the show, looking at everything that is displayed. Some buyers like to look at everything before placing their orders for future delivery. Some know exactly what they want and put their orders in first, to make sure they get the products they want asap. We, the business owners or sales managers, stand in the booth looking our best, holding a clipboard, waiting to “write”. Writing orders mean just that – taking a blank order form and filling it out as the buyer chooses one item after another, always specifying how many of each style is needed. At the end of the process, the order is totaled up and copies given to the buyer and kept with the company. It’s an exciting process, especially when your product is in demand.

And our product was in SUPER demand in 1976! This was the era of the handcrafted gift, the small business, and the appreciation of all things handmade. We had been selling our products at crafts fairs and local boutiques, so we knew how much customers loved them. And the gift shop and department store buyers did too!

The gift show was almost over. It was Tuesday at 6 p.m. and the show was officially closed for the day. We were happily counting up our orders, and relaxing in the booth. Sitting down. Doing paperwork. And in walked a lovely looking couple. They were both tall and slender. She was wearing a peach colored fuzzy wool sweater dress with pearls and matching high heels. He was wearing an off-white linen suit with a peach colored shirt and matching tie. They were very striking. But it was the end of the day and we just let them look, not jumping up to wait on them as we thought they were interior designers from the Blue Whale Design showrooms. And then the beautiful woman said to us….
“These are absolutely adorable!” Speaking with a Texas drawl she continued “We’re from Neimans…. and we’d love to have these darling ornaments in all 32 of our stores!” And that was our moment! When we knew Calliope Designs personalized ornaments would be a success.

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Take a peak at our amazing video featuring our handcrafted ornament selection. To browse all our featured ornaments, please visit our online site. 

“Firsts” of a Personalized Ornaments Business
The story of Calliope Designs includes many “firsts.” We’ll be telling you more about how this wonderful little business started, grew, and thrived over the years, but here’s a short article I wrote several years ago for publication in a web directory about – what else?  Ornaments!

The First Steps of a Personalized Ornament Business

The year, 1971. The times…. well, were a changing! Dorr Eddy an advertising agency art
director, and Stephanie Eddy an advertising agency account executive, left San Francisco and
moved to a small town in Sonoma County California. Still working free lance in advertising,
they spent an autumn making “dough” Christmas ornaments as gifts for family and friends.
Little did they know that a few short years later they would be hiring dozens of employees to
help fill orders for their unique ornaments from gift shops and department stores.
The Eddy say that to their knowledge, the ornaments company Calliope Designs which they
began in the seventies, was the first in the world to manufacture dough ornaments and to
personalize the ornaments with names, corporate logos, and places!
Orders for ornaments from stores like Neiman Marcus and Macy’s
New York launched Eddy’s cottage ornament business into the mainstream of gift shows,
advertising specialty distributors, and the ornaments souvenir industry. Stephanie and Dorr’s
first taste of the coming popularity of their cute little-handcrafted dough ornaments was at the
Great Dickens Faire in San Francisco in 1972. Dressed as Victorian merchants, selling bread
dough ornaments from an old-fashioned cart, Dorr and Stephanie sold every ornament they had
made in the summer in the first day of the 14-day crafts fair. The next six weeks were a blur of
remaking the ornaments each week to sell on the coming weekend.
It was at one of these Dickens Faire weekends that the buyers from Macy’s New York happened
across their ornaments display and saw the crowds surrounding their booth. The following
spring came a huge order for all Macy’s New York and Macy’s New Jersey stores. Taking
advantage of the popularity of the dough ornaments, the Eddy’s attended their first gift show –
the Beckman Show of Handmade and Handcrafted items in Los Angeles, California. They met
buyers from many gift shops and had to hire several helpers to keep up with writing orders for
their dough ornaments. Neiman Marcus proposed an ornament with a cowboy theme to be sold
in the famous Neiman Marcus catalog! Stephanie and Dorr suggested personalization of the
ornaments. Another first!
The first souvenir ornaments account for Calliope Designs was Yellowstone National Park. A
a small order of ornaments delivered at the beginning of their tourist season turned into a large
reorder, and brought the attention of many state and national parks around the United States.
There were new ornaments with wildlife designs, all namedropped with the individual park’s
location.
When the owners of Calliope Designs attended the Advertising Specialty show in Dallas Texas,
they met distributors who would show their clever ornaments to corporations. One of the first
corporations ordering their personalized bread dough ornaments is still ordering ornaments
today. Southwest Airlines has ordered a unique ornament each year to donate to the Ronald
MacDonald Houses in the southeastern United States. Today that corporate ornaments order has
grown to 800 pieces!
Some of the most popular items at Calliope Designs are the styles relating
to “first” occasions in a customer’s life. Over the years, they have perfected their lines of Baby’s
First Christmas ornaments, New Home Ornaments, First Christmas for Adopted Children as well
as First Anniversary Ornaments. Whatever the “First” is, Stephanie & Dorr Eddy at Calliope
Designs know that they have an ornament to suit the occasion. And they love having their
customers create their own special greetings for the ornaments – some of their best phrases have
come directly from the creativity of their customers.
Article and images used with permission from CalliopeDesigns.com
Tags: bread dough ornaments, Christmas decorations, Christmas gifts, Christmas ornaments,
Christmas traditions, clay ornaments, personalized ornaments, polymer clay ornaments

Premium, Advertising Specialty, and Custom Personalized Ornaments by Calliope Designs

Over the last 40 years Calliope Designs has had the opportunity to create custom designed Christmas tree ornaments as products to be used for gifts for businesses, colleges and universities, non profit organizations and special events.

Of course, one way of customizing an ornament is through the written inscription you order to be placed upon any of the designs you see currently shown on our website.
This works well for smaller orders because then it usually doesn’t make sense to go to the expense of creating a unique design. Also, using our currently available in stock products eliminates the need to plan ahead – you can choose a style and create a personalized ornament.

What are the requirements to have your own custom designed product created?

The minimum quantity required to have your own custom ornament created is 432 pieces.
The cost of each piece would depend upon it’s size and complexity, however in general the custom designed products are sold at our Wholesale prices.

How does the custom design process work?

We have our own in-house designer to create your product, but we would expect to have creative input from you, the customer. We would want to know about the organization we’re creating an ornament for, how it will be used (for sale or for a gift), and if there were any important design elements such as color, shape or subject matter. We would want to see any company logos or artwork that might be helpful to our creative process, and discuss with you, prior to beginning artwork what you had in mind.

Once a concept is decided upon, our designer will create a drawing of a custom Christmas tree ornament which is submitted for your approval prior to placing an or for a sample.

What is the cost of the design process?

The cost of having artwork and sample created is $125.00 paid in advance of the process.
If the product is accepted and ordered for production and delivery, the $125.00 is deducted from the final cost of the delivered product.

What’s next?

After approval of the finished sample, production is ordered and your custom designed ornaments are made, shipped to our warehouse for a thorough quality check, then sent on to you to be used as you wish.  Hand inscribed name or greeting is included in the price of the product.

How long does this process take?

The absolute minimum time this process takes is 5 months. That means if you want to have a custom Christmas ornament gift ready at the beginning of December you must be ready to begin prior to July 1st.

Here are some of the examples of custom designed Christmas ornaments we have created over the years.

Gingerbread Man in Sleigh: Created for The Greenbrier Inn in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia for their 2006 Greenbrier Gingerbread Ball. Calliope Designs has created a special ornament for this event for over 15 years.

Clown in Airplane: Created for Southwest Airlines as Christmas tree decorations and gifts for the Ronald McDonald Houses of Texas. This has been an ongoing program by SWA for many many years.

Country Club and Snowman: Created for The Glenmoor Country Club, Canton, Ohio
as part of a Holiday event in 2006.

Santa BBQ’ing the Turkey: Created for Lake Martin Living Magazine in Alexander City, Alabama. This 2006 ornament was the seventeenth in an annual series the magazine presents to the community of Lake Martin. They are treasured collectibles in that area!

Sparky on a Gift: Created for Arizona State University President’s Club. This ornament is also part of a series of annual ornaments that have been collected for years.

If you would be interested in having a special ornament designed for your company or organization, please contact Stephanie Eddy at 1-707 527 7178 Monday-Friday PST

Tips on Customizing Ornaments – The Calliope Way

Successful Personalization! Part I: The Names.
Before you begin shopping, think of the people you’d like to give a personalized Christmas ornament, and gather all their names and check the spellings. The ink is permanent, so of course you want to personalize your Christmas ornaments correctly the first time!

Some personalized ornaments are for one person, but others have multiple characters. It’s a great opportunity to make a gift for an entire family. If there’s any doubt about the children’s names, the unique spelling, the last baby, or even Grandma’s name, do your research! You’d be amazed at how many different ways there are to spell Megan,
Ashley, or Kristen. It’s good to check first.

If it’s a personalized baby gift the birth announcement is a good source of information.
The wedding invitation is good to use for personalized wedding gifts. And when you are thinking of personalized gifts for grandparents, if you are going to include all the grandchildren, a quick phone call might help in creating the perfect personalized Christmas ornaments.

If you’re not sure and can’t check, the last name or family name will suffice. Decide if you want to put the last name, for instance, Smith, or if you want The Smiths.

Successful Personalization! Part 2: The Year
We always suggest you put the year on your ornament. Lots of people collect Christmas tree ornaments and purposely get one or two dated ornaments each year to add to their collection.

Each year when the personalized ornaments are taken out and carefully hung on the Christmas tree it’s a time to remember activities, trips, special friends, neighbors, that have helped create this treasured collection of personalized Christmas ornaments.

We are happy to have many happy customers over the 33 years of selling personalized dough ornaments. We often have young couples who received our ornaments as a gift as a baby and during their childhood. They are now beginning their personalized Christmas ornament collection for their own family. Or order them to celebrate a wedding or the birth of a baby with a personalized wedding gift, or personalized baby gift so their friends can begin their own ornament collection.

Successful Personalization! Part 3: Inscriptions
In addition to individual names, family names, and the year, we recommend you use some of these holiday inscriptions to make your personalized Christmas ornament even more special. Please don’t feel limited by our phrases. If you have another idea, be sure and place it in the field for inscription. Each dough ornament is unique. Please use your own common sense to decide if your phrase will fit in the space to personalize.

Suffering from “Phrase Block” Check out popular phrases in our article on personalization ideas.