Bloomin' Flower Cards

Photo by Bernt Rostad

We’re packing up and getting ready to head to the hottest promotional products event of the summer: the ASI Chicago Show.  We’re excited to personally connect with all the distributors we speak to by phone almost daily.

Come by booth 2029 and ask about our show special!

We now offer our seeded paper with an herb mix of basil, chives, and parsley seeds, as well as two vegetable papers (orange carrots and green lettuce) as stock items.

Here’s a recipe for some great Carrot Oatmeal Cookies (from 101 Cookbooks) for when those carrots are ready:

Carrot Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

Photo by Dalyn Luedtke

After your initial batch experiment with the type of nuts/seeds you use. Lemon zest, clarified butter, and olive oil might be ingredients to play around with as well – but I haven’t tested them in this recipe. And I have to say, I love the flavor and richness the coconut oil brings to these cookies. If you have a hard time finding whole wheat pastry flour, feel free to substitute unbleached all-purpose flour.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup real maple syrup, room temperature
1/2 cup unrefined (fragrant) coconut oil, warmed until just melted
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Preheat oven to 375F degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and oats. Add the nuts and carrots. In a separate smaller bowl use a whisk to combine the maple syrup, coconut oil, and ginger. Add this to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Drop onto prepared baking sheets, one level tablespoonful at a time, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie. Bake in the top 1/3 of the oven for 10 – 12 minutes or until the cookies are golden on top and bottom.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

What’s  your favorite recipe that includes basil, chives, parsley, carrots, or lettuce?

I really enjoy watching our seed paper sprout. Every week or two we take samples of some random or specific  sheets of paper to “loosely” test for germination. No we are not always super scientific about it, we send our paper off to a lab for that. This is just to make sure that our paper is growing like it is supposed to. We average about 50% germination – give or take, anyway, when our paper is wet in our germination trays, the colors look so saturated and rich and the sprouts are so green. I can’t keep my eyes off it. Here a couple of pics I took last week, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Here is a glimpse of an early season custom holiday card. Thanks for your continued business, University of Phoenix. This holiday card has a seed paper star/snowflake attached to a seed paper card. It is letterpress printed inside and out with gold ink. The seeds are a mix of wildflowers.

The University of Phoenix has gone green.

Check out the letterpress printed detail and all the seeds in this image.

This is how the letterpress printing looks on the inside.

Like many of our customers, The University of Phoenix wants what they want and we get them what they want. We don’t offer this card in this exact configuration, but special orders don’t upset us. Bring ‘em on! Some of our best formats have developed from customer ideas – thank you very much. For promotional ideas, come to Bloomin Promotions and see what we offer.

Here is a card showing silver ink.

If you’re thinking of a custom seeded holiday card this season, talk to your trusty promotional product distributor soon.

-Tom Noyes

Want to be a part of the green frenzy with seed paper, but don’t have the need to purchase invitations or individual cards? Guess what? Bloomin’ now offers these beautiful Plant Me Paper by the sheets in both multi-color packs or all white. Each pack comes with ten 8.5″ x 11″ sheets and they’re completely printable with your home inkjet. Perfect for invitations and personal stationery.

Plant the paper and enjoy the wildflowers!

Our seed paper is running rampant in our facility. We had to take a picture of the endless stacks to show you how colorful and beautiful it all looks displayed together. We’re making lots of new paper on a daily basis to keep up with our demand of orders and new retail products. Check out our retail website to see what’s new.