Glass Dry Erase Boards

As functional and necessary as the dry erase board is to the office and the school, it does have aesthetic limitations. Whether the board is melamine or porcelain, it's a big wall of white surrounded by a wood or metal frame. There are only so many ways to dress that up. That might be why the new trend of glass dry erase boards is taking off.

Lorell Glass Dry Erase Board

For offices with an eye for style, glass dry erase boards are an attractive alternative to melamine or porcelain. Glass boards are frameless- one smooth piece of glass with mounts embedded into the corners. Boards are either an opaque white or frosted to allow them to function as writing surfaces while retaining some transparency. The surfaces erase easily and are less likely to ghost than a melamine board

Quartet Infinity Glass Dry Erase Board

The Quartet Infinity Board here illustrates just how many benefits a glass marker board can have. The glass is tempered and hard to break. Marker trays are easy to attach for storing markers and erasers. The Infinity, among other glass boards, can be ordered with undated calendars printed on them for easy planning. Most importantly, many glass boards are also magnetic, allowing them to double as bulletin boards and notification centers.

For more information and product links to other glass dry erase boards, check out our buying guide.

End of School Year Deals

We're nearing a happy time for students and teachers alike as the school year draws to a close. For students, it means a few months of downtime and warm weather. It's pretty easy to see why they're enthusiastic. We hope educators get to enjoy the same. But savvy teachers and school administrators also know that May and June offer some great opportunities to prepare for the next school year.

Frugal educators may often find themselves with some money left in their budgets towards the end of the year. This is often a use-it-or-lose-it situation, and not using it may lead to the false impression that the budget is safe to be reduced the following year. So it's time to spend it on items next year's students can use. Because of this, May is one of the biggest months for school supply sales outside than August.

Quartet Premium Dry Erase Board

So what are some good purchases to consider? To start, how is the room's dry erase board holding up? We've detailed the differences between various boards before, and a board that isn't equipped to handle the rigors a class puts on it may ghost, stain or even crack. For boards that aren't cutting it, consider a porcelain replacement that is smoother, magnetic and eliminates these problems.

Swingline Fusion 3000L Laminator

We recently discussed how useful laminators can be, and schools know that better than anybody. This is a good time to save on Scotch or Swingline thermal laminators, with prices of up to 50% off retail.

Stanley Bostitch Quiet Sharp 8 Pencil Sharpener

Classrooms are also one of the last resting places for wood pencils, and the sharpening technology in them often reflects that. Many classrooms have an outdated pencil sharpener, so this is a great time for an upgrade. The Stanley Bostitch Quiet Sharp 8 is affordable and features an easily replaceable cutter. Best of all, it's designed to work with colored pencils, which most sharpeners tend to struggle with. Right now, if you order a Quiet Sharp 8 sharpener and use our coupon code, we'll throw in both a replacement cutter and a box of colored pencils free!

A New Way to Light Your Desk

As it stands now, incandescent light bulbs are dinosaurs. Long ago, we realized that they wasted too much energy and we found cost-efficient alternatives that conserve both money and electricity. For all but specialized purposes, those are gradually becoming extinct, and not a moment too soon.

However, the popular alternative hasn't captured our hearts the way we'd expect. While the compact fluorescent bulb uses less energy and lasts longer, we're still hesitant to call it the better bulb. It's hard to love that awkward spiral shape. The light quality can be inconsistent from bulb to bulb, with some models suffering from a flicker that can be annoying even when your eyes don't register it. While developments have been made to improve the quality, we're simple creatures that prefer natural light, which incandescents have always done a better job replicating. Add to that the uncomfortable traces of mercury inside every CFL and the brief delay before they turn on, and there is something lacking in the technology.

So while CFLs continue their valiant effort to earn our love, LED technology is swooping in and stand to become a viable new option. LEDs have been around for a while, but have always been resigned to specialty functions since individual bulbs are weaker and can't shine light in all directions. That's beginning to change, since the small bulbs can be combined into an array that can shine in all directions while using less energy and lasting much longer than even CFLs, which themselves can last eight times longer than incandescents. Best of all, LED lights don't flicker and the light quality already surpasses florescents.

3M Task Light (27 Light Array)

LED bulbs in products such as flashlights have been around for years, and standard light bulb equivalents are now available. It's also emerging in the office world with products like 3M's new task lights. These use anywhere from 12 to 42 lights in their array (depending on the model), have an adjustable head and are polarized to reduce glare. 

 Glare Difference With 3M Task Lights

In all but the most basic model, lights can be brightened and dimmed (another shortcoming of florescents). In a place like the desk where concentration is so important, why have anything but reliable, flexible and quality light shining it?

Promoting Business with Avery Labels

Avery labels are a juggernaut in the office supply world. Everybody knows how easy it is to find a template for your labels, create your design and print it out on your inkjet or laser printer. Most of the time, these labels are for mailing or shipping. Sometimes they're multipurpose labels that differ only in function and size, not in shape. A few stragglers might even be creating custom labels for CDs and DVDs, assuming anyone still burns CDs and DVDs.

Nothing wrong with taking care of the essentials, but it only scratches the surface of all the opportunities Avery presents for creating custom content. Small businesses looking to create custom printing for splashy presentations, promotional campaigns or giveaways may think they have two options- overpay a printing company or keep dreaming. Avery has cards, labels and templates that take all of these and make them just as easy to create as a typical shipping label.

Avery Textured Arched Labels

With a unique texture and an arched side, think of how much a presentation would stand out. How about ovals on brochures? Square labels of any size are great for adding QR codes to materials. For giveaways, use these labels on bottles, bags or boxes, perhaps with custom tags attached.

Door Hangers w/ Tear-Away Cards

For reaching out to new customers, print your own door hangers that include tearaway cards that may include coupons or contact information. Avery also makes brochuretemplates with the same tearaway features. And again, all of these have downloadable templates and designs on avery.com.

Getting Lamination Under Wraps

Look around at all the papers you've got on and overlooking your desk. How about the entire office, like something on a billboard or crucial information resigned to a Post-It note? Some of that's important, right? Shouldn't there be more care taken to preserve this information, at least to showcase it and announce that yes, this is significant? It's the sort of thing begging to be laminated.

A laminator is one of those pieces of equipment around the office that everybody is aware of, but rarely gets used to its full potential. Part of the issue is that until you actually sit down and use a laminating machine, the concept of permanently encasing something in plastic seems expensive, time-consuming and complicated. None of these are true.

Swingline Fusion 1100L Laminator

There are three types of laminators-hot, cool and roll. Hot and cool laminators have the same external mechanics, where you insert the item to be laminated into a special pre-sized pouch and insert the pouch into the machine. That's it. Hot laminators use a thermal adhesive and typically create the strongest bond, while cold laminators use a pressure-sensitive adhesive and are recommended when the contents being laminated might melt or bleed in high temperatures (such as ink). Some machines even allow you to choose between hot and cool lamination.

The only choice to make is the thickness of your laminating pouch. Pouches are available in different thicknesses (measured in mil) and, depending on the maximum thickness your laminator will allow, you can choose how bendy or rigid you want the finished prouct to be.

Scotch Roll Laminator

With roll laminators, you don't need pouches as the film is already loaded in the machines. With many of these, documents are loaded in and cranked manually, making it a little trickier to get a perfect, smooth lamination. The advantages are that, like the cool laminator, there's no risk of melting ink and since there are no pouches to worry about, you can laminate longer items like banners.

Why Pay For Free Shipping?

The annual fee for Amazon Prime has increased to $99 a year. The program's main feature is offering free, fast shipping on a large number of the site's items. At first, it sounds like a fair product, selling some piece of mind and ensuring that you don't have to compare shipping options or expenses. At some point, however, there has to be a realization that paying a hundred dollars for free shipping is... a bit off.

We generally like the philosophy that free shipping should be something that's, you know, free. That's why we keep it simple: unless you're buying something ginormous that requires a freight truck, if the order's over $45, it ships free. Below that, it's $8.99, still a far cry from $99. It's easy to get to the magic free shipping number. Look around our site and find a bunch of stuff that you need, or even just one thing that you really, really want... like a memory foam back rest for your office chair.

Go On... Treat Yourself. You Deserve It.

"But What About the Fast Part?" I hear you hypothetically asking. Note the shipping time on that back rest. That's right. Thanks to a network of distribution centers all over the country, there's no need to pay more for expedited shipping. A large majority of customers get their orders the next business day at no additional cost. Better yet, we offer free returns on select brands of dry erase boards, chairs and shredders, meaning that if you don't like what you get, the shipping back to us is also free.

Tombow Adhesive to the Xtreme

Crafters have stood by Tombow's adhesive tape since forever. That's not going to change any time soon. It flows smoothly, distributes adhesive evenly, and is so much easier to use than glue sticks or anything similar. One of its (few) limitations, however, is the strength of the adhesive. It works great attaching papers and photos to books or boards, and that's all it's normally asked to do. But when it comes time to work with heavier craft materials, the first inclination is to reach for the glue gun or something stronger. Wouldn't it be great if the convenience of Tombow dispensers could be used on projects requiring strong adhesive?

Tombow Xtreme Adhesive

Feel free to insert a fanfare of electric guitars. Tombow's Xtreme adhesive is packaged in a dispenser similar to the classic Mono or craft adhesive, but the tape itself is super-charged (insert cheesy lightning effects) to be up to five times stronger than the average adhesive tape dispenser. Along with everything the standard Tombow adhesive will rock, the Xtreme model allows you to work with wood, glass, fabric, plastic and a variety of other materials. This extreme video shows it in action:

Totally Extreme Xtreme Demo

With this new product, crafters can now easily incorporate award ribbons, small medals and other memories, adding dimension to any project. The Xtreme adhesive is permanent, archival, and acid-free. Most importantly- it's refillable. In addition, buy at least $75 worth of qualifying Tombow products (including both the Xtreme and original adhesive tape runners/refills) and Tombow will send you a gift card!