Creative Ideas for Displaying Your Business in Easy Conversation-Starters

You probably know as many people as I do who have a side gig--or a full-time business--where they can set their own schedule and work from home, such as Gold Canyon Candles, Pampered Chef, or Forever, to name some of my favorites.  Or maybe a jewelry-making or soap-making business.

These are such great options for anyone who wants to set their own schedule, work from home, etc., but they do require a certain amount of self-advertising.  You have to get yourself out there.

If you've got a business you'd like to promote, or you know someone who would, here are four creative ideas I have personally loved for displaying and advertising my business without me saying a thing!

These are great conversation starters!  I have created these items with Forever Print, which I love for its quality!  

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

#1 Water Bottle

Just about everyone carries a water bottle with them these days, and this is such an easy way to share with others what you do--almost by accident!  

Instead of family photos as this template shows, you can include photos of your products or something you love about your business.  If you want to design an image to go in one of those spots, Canva is an easy way to do that. 

Or, you can just choose one image and a template with a saying or monogram that fits you well, like this one below.  There are a lot of free templates, and new ones are added all the time.  

That said, there is a DIY option for designing your own water bottle.  You'll see below my DIY water bottle which I designed using Forever's Artisan digital scrapbooking software program.  It allows full flexibility, creativity, choice of fonts, etc.  I love and use Artisan for my digital photo-memory books each year, so if something you're designing yourself sounds ideal to you, you can learn more about Artisan here.  

If you don't think you'd use Artisan aside from a few business products like these but would still like to design your own water bottle (and ideas #2 and #4 coming up!), I do hire out my design services, so give me a holler since I already own Artisan.

WATER BOTTLE SPECS

• 17 oz.
• Insulated stainless steel water bottle with brushed aluminum spill-proof screw-on cap
• Hand-wash only. Not dishwasher or microwave safe. Not intended for hot liquids.

MY WATER BOTTLE

I did create my own water bottle using Artisan, and I LOVE how it turned out!!

Since I could put text and photos anywhere, it ended up exactly how I wanted it with lots of information.  I know it's hard to see on a photo of a round surface, so you can see the project itself in my Forever account here in order to see the whole design.

#2 A Tag with Your QR code

I love this great idea from a colleague!  You can use an ornament as a little advertisement AND include the QR code to your website, YouTube channel, or whatever you like! 

There are a lot of different ornament templates to choose from, so check them out here and play around with whatever looks good to you.  Most have a front and back so you can have an image on one side and the QR code image on another. 

This is the Benelux shape.

Or, there's a blank option for you to upload something you've designed (say, on Canva) or just a whole photo.

I love the idea of including a QR code that goes to your website!  This is my favorite QR code generator if you don't already have one because you can include your business logo in the center (just like I did, which I'll show you shortly)!  

ORNAMENT SPECS (several shapes and materials available)

• Includes red hanging ribbon (but it's easy to swap out for your own ribbon if you like)
• Materials: (aluminum) premium glossy coated white aluminum; (glass) glass with beveled edges and frosted backing; (acrylic) TBA
• Number of Sides: Double-Sided for metal (aluminum) ornaments; Single-Sided for glass; Single-Sided for acrylic
• Dimensions: Benelux Ornament 3" x 4" Rectangle Ornament 3" x 4"  Circle Ornament 3" x 3" Square Ornament 3" x 3"

MY BUSINESS TAG/ORNAMENT

I started out trying to create my business tag/ornament using the Create & Print templates, but I was using two images I'd created and saved previously, and the dimensions for what I was going for weren't quite right.  I ended up using Artisan, so you won't be surprised that I LOVE how it turned out!!

You can see that the metal ornaments are double-sided and come with a red ribbon for hanging.

I decided to go with some twine when I tied it on my bag.  

I'm so happy with how this turned out.  What an easy conversation starter.

#3 Business Books

What if you could make your own personalized, unique-to-you, better-than-a-catalog book showcasing your business?

And what if it only costs about $12?

I love this idea for a "brag book" you can carry in your purse or briefcase that is completely personalized to YOU!  Sure, put photos of your products and services in the book, but what about:

• testimonials
• quick tips
• how-tos
• what you love about your business

A simple 8x8 softbound template in the Create & Print software (all free) is $12.50 when you buy it during a 50% off sale (which happens every 3-5 weeks).  

You could try a basic template with a clean look like this one or a neutral like this one, or you could make one that's a little snappier and colorful like this one.  Feel free to explore more templates by navigating at the left once you're there.

FYI, the Create & Print software is super easy to use and very intuitive.  Putting a book together wouldn't take you very long.

I first got this idea from FOREVER.  The Home Office Team put together a step-by-step guide for using FOREVER that they printed as a nice hardbound book!  You can see all the pages by clicking the image below (that's the cover of the book) or scanning the QR code.

Once you've opened the link, you can swipe along the bottom to see all the pages.

I think this idea is genius!  How do you think it would work with YOUR business?  What would you love to share?  

Carrying a little purse-sized book is so much easier than carrying samples, and you can really bring it home if you include testimonials and experiences of people who have used and loved your product or services.

#4 Business Cards

Most people with businesses have business cards, yes, but you can do some special things with Artisan!  There aren't any limits to the design.

You could even do something fun like this:

Imagine a giveaway or a punch card!  The possibilities are endless.

I did a creative take on a business card years ago and created a little list of my events that people could attend!  

Now that I've moved most of my events online, I don't use these cards any more... but, come to think of it, this would be a great place for a QR code with a direct link to my blog tab listing all my upcoming events!

BUSINESS CARD SPECS

• Available in landscape or portrait orientation.
• Double-sided.
• 3"x2" or 2"x3"
• Set of 50

MY BUSINESS CARDS

Business cards are a specialty item only available in Artisan, but remember my For-Hire option if you'd like me to create something for you.  

I love these business cards because you can make yourself really stand out!

In fact, I love each of these creative ways to use these products to make yourself stand out in your business and let people know what you do before you even say anything!

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How I Digitized Family Memories in Negatives, CD, and VHS with the Forever Box (and WHY!)

I'm old enough to know that technology is amazing, except that it comes and goes.  

All the slides my father took of our family trip to Greece and Italy when I was 1 year old can only be viewed with a slide projector (Google that if you need to) and a big screen.

That makes our precious family memories endangered.

Maybe "endangered" seems like a strong, harsh word.  Trust me:  it's accurate!  I'll tell you why, and how I got my own outdated media out of danger.  (I'm so excited to tell you about it because I'm so happy with the result!)

Family Movies on VHS Tapes 

When my in-laws found out we were expecting our first baby, they bought us a video camera.  I was so thankful because video cameras were kind of expensive, and we were young and saving money for a house.  The video camera was nice and big and recorded video on fancy new Hi8 videos!

I dutifully (and joyfully!) took family videos of our babies, toddlers, kiddos, and teens, of first steps and graduations and family vacations.  It was fantastic.

In order to be able to view these videos as a family, I dutifully (and mostly joyfully) set up a tangle of cords so that I could copy the videos onto VHS tapes, in part so that I could send copies to my in-laws and my parents, all of whom lived far away.

Once VHS tapes weren't the latest thing any more, I dutifully (it was so time-consuming!) copied the VHS tapes to DVD with a brand new DVD-VHS combination player that also recorded.

And then we moved across the country.

My stack of VHS tapes on my To Do List got put in a box.  By the time I got the DVD-VHS player/recorder set up, and all the appropriate cords plugged into the appropriate machines in my new house, life was pretty busy.  I started chipping away at my big stack of VHS tapes (I recorded a family one, and then one for each of my 3 children), and it wasn't very long before my DVD-VHS machine stopped working.

I probably don't need to tell you that you can't go buy another one any more.  That technology has been completely replaced.  And so, I am embarrassed to say, those precious home movies on VHS tapes sat on my project table for EIGHT YEARS.  Until I learned this:

I had already begun to see evidence of that in my VHS-DVD transferring, so I knew that my family videos were endangered.  They felt a little like a ticking time bomb.

My First Forever Box: VHS Tapes

It was about this time that I learned about the Forever Box, a digitizing service that is the highest-rated on TrustPilot compared to 3 (I think it was) other popular digitization websites.  

I know it can be hard to let your precious family memories out of your sight, especially when they are the ONLY COPY of them, but this is what I decided:

If I don't get these videos out of VHS form, all my kids will be able to do with them in 20 years is throw them away.  

The Forever Box is processed at a huge digitization center in Wisconsin, not sent overseas.  It is shipped with FedEx and tracked the whole time.  My VHS tapes are identified throughout the whole process using bar codes specific to me and my order.  The staff at the digitizing center wears gloves, dusts my media, and even makes it better than it was!  This is what I learned:

So, based on this, and the recommendations of other people I knew who had done it, and these TrustPilot reports, and--especially--knowing that if I didn't do something with those VHS tapes soon, it would literally be too late, I went for it.

I cannot even tell you how thrilled I was to get my family memories back.  They are accessible!  They are shareable!  We can watch them easily now!  I have been able to share videos with my grown kids, and it has been delightful!  

The Results: Not Keeping All Your Memories in one Proverbial Basket

When you place your digitization order, you can choose to get your digitized media in 3 ways:  DVD, flash drive, or in the cloud in your private Forever Storage account.  

I know the value of having multiple copies in multiple media, so I got DVDs since we have a DVD player still as well as having them saved in my Forever Storage.  The videos are downloadable from Forever Storage, so I did that as well, saving them on my computer.    

NOTE:  I am a Forever affiliate (a decision I made because I love it so much), so you will find several affiliate links in this post, from which I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

My Second Forever Box: Family Memories on CD and in Negatives 

At least 15 (maybe even 20+) years ago, my parents, my sister, my brother, and I decided to record ourselves reading children's stories.  That way, all the kids/grandkids could hear their grandparents and aunts and uncle reading them stories that they could follow along to with their own books!  

It is a special treasure now that my mom has passed and we don't get to hear her voice any more.  

However, CD players aren't all that common any more.  Now with the youngest grandkids--and an ever-growing number of great-grandkids--these CDs aren't useful.  They've practically been lost to history, in just 15-20 years.

So, I decided to get the CD digitized (hence, the barcode on the photo above), which I know sounds silly because it's already digital.  This is called a Digital Transfer.  It's just a change from one digital form to another digital form.  But doing so (getting .mp3 versions from the CD's files) will allow these treasured stories to be played from a phone, tablet, or computer now for the newer Littles in the family!

At the same time, I decided that I want to digitize the negatives of my wedding pictures.  With the Forever Box, I could have instead chosen to have the wedding photos (the hard copies themselves) digitized by scanning, but I don't have any extra copies of them, and some of them have been displayed and faded in the sun over the last 30 years.  So I decided the negatives were the best bet.  

And I made you a video to show you how exactly to pack a Forever Box and walk you through the process.  

Since making that video, the process has been streamlined so that all media types just go in the same box.  You can see all the information for Forever Digitizing here, and keep in mind that the "price" of the "box" is really a credit.  (A $60 box includes $60 worth of media digitizing.)

The Results: Making Old Media Shareable

One of the biggest reasons to make old media shareable is this:  Even though my mom has passed on, her great-grandchildren who were born after she died can still listen to her reading them stories!  Click the image below to hear my mom reading "Go, Dog, Go!"

Click here to listen to Grandma reading you a story!

I had been trying to figure out the best way to share this newly- digitized treasure with my family.  Since my mom is gone, Mother's Day can be a sensitive time for us.  I decided that these stories would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift, so I emailed them to all the family the day before, using the link to them in my Forever Storage, similar to the one I just shared with you.  

That way, they can be accessed from a computer, tablet, or phone AND downloaded to that computer, tablet, or phone as well, which will make these stories so much more accessible to the younger generation of kiddos! 

My family (nieces, nephews, kids, dad, everyone) just clicked on the link to see where I had put the audio files (.mp3)--I put them into an Album (like a folder on your computer) in my Forever Storage.  

Of course, they're just audio files, so they don't have a thumbnail image to show which story is which.  Once you click on them, you can see the details as I have entered them.  See that on the right (below)?  

After opening the file like this, anyone I share this with can see those details at the right, and they can click on the PLAY arrow in the middle to hear the story.  (It's private in my personal account, but I did put a copy in my Demo account for you to listen to, the one I shared above, and I set that to a public setting.)

Another option for organizing your audio files--which I ended up deciding to do--is to put them in different Nested Albums (like subfolders on your computer), labeling each Nested Album as the story it contains.  It's so much easier to see what's there, and that's how I wanted to present it to my family.

You can see that I added a photo of the original Family Story Time CD to this FOREVER Album, too, so that I could set it as the Album's thumbnail image.

And because my FOREVER Storage is permanent, these stories will always be here for our family to listen to, shareable with just a link.  

And as for the negatives, you can see one of them in digital form here.  (Yes, I look 12 years old.  I was older than that, really.  I promise.)

There's No Time Like the Present

Food comes with expiration dates, and I really wish technology did, too!  

"Your computer will crash 5/16/28" or "DVD players will no longer come in laptops 6/29/23" or "There will be no way to play this Betamax tape after 3/15/16" would be SO helpful!

It falls to us, then, to stay on top of media that is important to us and our families.  

This was a TREASURE in its time because you could take home movies of your family!  For the first time EVER!  Think of it!

But if someone gave me something like this today, it would be useless.  I literally have no way to see, enjoy, or share it.  And that would be a tragedy.

If you have family memories on endangered media and need a trusted way to save them, I highly recommend the Forever Box.  You can see more details, including two short video tutorials, on the Forever Box here.

Just about everyone has old, endangered family memories, so share this post on
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