hey bloggers, after the exciting launch last week of the new seasonal distress series, i have to say once again how overwhelmed and grateful i am for it all. i can't even begin to thank everyone so much for sharing in the excitement and creative chaos this launch stirred up. so i wanted to share a little background of how the idea of the seasonal distress series came to be. as you know, i truly love my distress line with ranger. after being on the market for over 7 years, i continue to use these inks as if they are the latest and greatest. i'm happy with the palette of 36 colors of distress, but of course there are times when i want a certain color especially around certain seasons. which got me thinking…i've said it many times, trust your crazy ideas...
so i pitched my idea to ranger, to create a batch of unique seasonal colors for distress inks. i loved the idea of creating a palette of 3 new colors perfect for the season. we would create a batch of these colors once a year to release to the market. these colors would only be available for the season and not be made again until the following year. being a U.S. manufacturer, adding new products of any capacity has its challenges, but adding more to the already popular distress line had even more. numbers we're crunched, reports ran, production materials ordered, distributors notified, and schedules made, if we were going to launch this we were going to be ready - at least that was our intention…
to say we were all blown away at the response from all of you would be an understatement. based off any previous new distress ink launch we produced more than predicted sales. in fact we manufactured what should have been weeks worth of inventory, but instead it sold out within 6 hours, completely unexpected. don't get me wrong, i knew it was going to create a bit of a frenzy being limited and all, but 6 hours? of course once we all realized what was going on, it was too late to do anything about it immediately, but that didn't stop us from trying to figure out a solution.
one of the many benefits of ranger being a U.S. manufacturer is the ability to react quickly, so we began to try to secure more materials, create more dyes, allowing us to make another batch of these seasonal fall distress inks. although it was not part of the initial plan, we want to do our part to meet the demand set by all of you. so i'm happy to say that ranger is making one more production run of the fall seasonal distress inks to ship out in the next few weeks. i truly appreciate the support from all of you, and wanted to do my best to make sure more people had the chance to get a set of these colors if they wanted. simply amazing!…
now to answer some of the many frequently asked questions:
- are there going to be reinkers for these colors? the short answer is no, but the reason is simply because these unique seasonal colors are made in a small batch to create the specific colors i want. so i had to choose and i would rather have more distress pads available than half the amount if we made reinkers.
- will i be able to get these seasonal colors again? yes, my idea was to have these colors around for the season. so next fall, these same colors will be created again and made available for the season (kind of like seasonal fruit i suppose).
- are you making other distress products in these seasonal colors? i only wanted to create these seasonal colors in distress ink pads.
- since they are part of a "seasonal series" does that mean there are going to be other colors for winter? yes, i've created a set of seasonal colors for winter as well, and they will be released on november 1st!
well hopefully this has explained a little more about the seasonal series of distress inks. i can't express my sincere thanks enough to all of you for sharing your creative energy with this launch. it's been a fun way to bring new colors to the distress palette and i appreciate all of your amazing support and excitement. guess this idea wasn't so crazy after all - who knew?…t!m
When are you going to be on HSN again? That was awesome!!!! It's been way too long :(
Posted by: Terri Godinez | September 20, 2011 at 07:20 AM
I can't WAIT to see the November 1st release and I think it is awesome that you and Ranger are working to meet the demand! That is fantastic customer service! Thank you!!!
Posted by: Jingle | September 20, 2011 at 07:21 AM
I can't wait to get ahold of them! And can't wait to see the winter lineup!
Posted by: Beth | September 20, 2011 at 07:21 AM
Congratulations on the successful {!} launch, and helping to create a tsunami of excitement, once again! {Ranger is SO lucky to have you!} Can't wait to, hopefully, get my hands on these - I'm SO ready for fall projects! THANKS, again! Yeeee Haw!
Posted by: Elise | September 20, 2011 at 07:23 AM
That is so cool. I am not an "orange" person but that one looks really nice. I can't wait to see these in person!
Posted by: Kay | September 20, 2011 at 07:23 AM
I'm so glad that we'll have another chance to get these. The colors are beautiful, and I was one of those who came up short - lol! So, hopefully when I call the girls at Stampalistic, they'll put me on the list for the next batch. Thanks, Tim!
Posted by: Cynthia | September 20, 2011 at 07:23 AM
What a birthday present next release on my Birthday can't think of a better present...Thanks T!m..
Posted by: Roberta | September 20, 2011 at 07:24 AM
Thanks for the explanation, Tim. And thanks to Ranger for responding so quickly! See you on the big boat!
Cindy
Posted by: Cindy K | September 20, 2011 at 07:24 AM
I think it's awesome and yes definitely created a frenzy. I saw the first announcement and emailed AND facebooked my LSS right away to get in on the action!!! I love the color pallet and crossing my fingers I get my hands on these awesome colored distress ink pads!
Posted by: Lacey I | September 20, 2011 at 07:24 AM
Sounds awesome. I'm not at all surprised they sold out in 6 hrs! Just hope I can get my hands on some :)
Posted by: Melissa 'Ziggy' Cook | September 20, 2011 at 07:25 AM