Whistle Ink ‘Office Supplies’ Blog

I’ve been looking around the Internet for ideas on how you can use office supplies to make craft projects and to my great delight I found quite a few actual crafts made entirely from office supplies.

One of the best samples of novel office supplies art I’ve seen is post-it art which you can see here

Artists around the world have created enormous art pieces using different coloured post-it notes, mosaic style to create dynamic original art.

Some have gone so far as to cover their cars in these brightly coloured post it notes. I doubt these would fair well in the rain!

Meanwhile there are many great crafts that children can make using inexpensive office supplies, i.e.:

Paper-clip jewelry.
Paper clips come in various shapes, sizes and colours and link easily together to make necklaces or bracelets.

Post-it beads
Using post-its again, cut the coloured post-its into thin strips.
Roll the strips around a pencil or knitting needle and glue the free ends to the paper below. When you roll the paper off the pencil you should have what looks like a bead. If you make lots of beads you can make more great jewelry.

You can experiment with different widths of paper for different effects

Scrap-booking with office supplies
Meanwhile office supplies can be used to make any craft and here one woman demonstrates how useful office supplies can be for scrap booking enthusiasts.

Office supplies can be used for card making.

Guillotines are great as many now come with a range of cutting edges.
You can create fancy edges to cards or to card toppers as well as being able to trim your pieces to size for a nice smooth professional looking edge.

Other great card making office supplies include small desk tidies and storage boxes for all those small fiddly bits you don’t want to lose.

Meanwhile printers and printer ink are always necessary for printing off papers and patterns from craft projects you found on the web.

Why don’t you see what great craft project you can make using office supplies.

Ladislao Biro - The inventor of the Biro / Ball Point pen

Ball Point Pens - there’s so many of them at so many different prices!

Ok I have to say I’m not a fan of those cheap ball point pens. You know the ones you get in boxes of 50 and are clunky and just don’t feel right and writing with them is a bad experience. I must have a bad case of ‘office supplies snobbishness’ But I’m right.

They don’t exactly cost too much more compared to the bic ball point pen. And if you think they DO cost alot - consider how long these things last (before we chew them or lose them).

It might interest you to know that both Biro and Bic are both peoples names. Biro (László József Bíró) invented the ball point pen. Ink would be put on the paper after being picked up by the ball. The ink was thicker than it would be in a fountain pen.

In 1950 Marcel Bich bought from Bíró the patent for the pen, which is what they are probably most famous for now apart from Bic razors.

The market is dominated by just a few players and it’s like beer - you tend to stick to one brand.

The first one is Staedtler and the popular Staedtler range of ‘fine ball pens; which they call ’sticks’

Staedtler 430 Stick Ball Pen Medium 1.0mm Tip 0.35mm Line Black Ref 430M-9 [Pack 10]

And there’s the ones from Bic themselves - of course I never see this in my office as I don’t order it.

Bic Cristal Ball Pen Clear Barrel 1.0mm Tip 0.4mm Line Black Ref 837363/847822 [Pack 50]

And if you want one that looks like those orange razor they used to exist (or maybe still do) then here they are:

Bic Orange Ball Pen 0.8mm Tip 0.2mm Line Black Ref 1199110114 [Pack 20]

I was looking for Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson and was diverted for a minute by a video on You Tubes homepage.

The title was: How to Hack the Staples EASY button!

It’s a fantastically hilarious clip about Staples EASY button.

Do you have a Staples EASY button? Let us know what you thinkof the clip!

Everyone has either pulled an office prank or been the victim of one at some point in their office based career, here is one of the most elaborate office pranks ever as seen on youtube.

This office prank video has been named the best ever office prank, see if you agree.

The pranksters build a wall at the start of a corridor confusing office workers who cant quite fathom whats happening. Initially they think theyve taken a wrong turn. The hidden camera shows them scratching their heads in confusion as they return to the spot.

My office pranks were never so elaborate but Ive pulled a few in my time.

One of my best was learning how to do the trick whereby you look like youre levitating. This is great for showing your staff or colleagues who has the power.

You can learn how to levitate yourself here

http://www.howtodotricks.com/balducci-levitation-blaine-levitation.html

Meanwhile here are some office pranks you can pull on co-workers using office stationary. You are responsible for the consequences!

Paperclip trick
Link your colleagues paper clips together and then put them back in the box. This will drive them mad trying to unravel them all.

Sticky tape trick
Tape the wheels of your colleagues chair so that they cant roll. This will drive them potty.

Post- it note trick
Put your litter - bin on your desk and label it with a post-it note with the word “IN”.

Pen trick
Stick the lids on some cheap pens using glue then swap with your colleagues pens. Imagine their frustration as they try to wrench the lids off without success.

If you can think of more great office pranks using office stationery let us know.

Parliament

With all this expenses scandal going on I was interested to see how much was spent on office supplies. If some of them went crazy of the trivial items I imagine be able to order multipacks of top branded gel pens to be the order of the day!

I’m sure a quick scan of Whistle Ink and they could have reduced his office supplies overall! Here is the list of office supplies products they took the time to declare:

The claims:

Douglas Alexander claimed claimed 43p for a box of rubber bands and £7.83 for a box of disposable latex gloves

Sarah McCarthy Fry claimed 17p for two paperclips and £3.56 on gold and silver sticky stars

Andrew George charged £4.99 for a telescopic flick duster and £31.50 for a winter candle

Ed Balls, the Education Secretary and leading Brownite, claimed £9.99 to buy The Rebels: How Blair Mislaid His Majority

Martin Horwood, Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, sent his PA away for a couple of days and spent £693.25 on the course “How to Be A Proactive PA”

Hugo Swire, Tory MP for East Devon, claimed £24.50 for an orchid plant for his office in 2005

David Cameron, the Tory leader, claimed £10 at the Parliamentary Bookshop for a copy of The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches

I’m sure these MPs would be any office stationery companies dream customer!

Source

The governments plan is to require supermarket to sell more products loose and look at offering refilling options.
We used to take our soda bottles back to the corner shop and until a few years back when our milk came in bottles and got delivered to our door – we put the empty ones out.
How would you feel going into an office supplies store and then say grabbing a handful of paperclips, or picking up a loose pad of post it notes or cartridges without the cardboard packaging?
There would need to be set containers that you could pay for one and then you could bring that in and fill it up and get charged a standard price – kind of like the salad section where three sizes of containers at different prices.
What other office supplies do you think would work?

To read more about the new propsals from DEFRA click here

Dymo Labelwriter 400

I have this label printer the Dymo Labelwriter 400 and its pretty impressive.

Do you know when sometimes you have printed off a good few sheets of labels in the laser printer for a big mail job and then go and mess up a label for whatever reason? What a hassle.

Or when you realise you need to print one again or missed some out?

What a load of effort that involves, that you almost give up and walk out!

When it comes to the time you need to print just one or a couple of labels off the fly, simply select the address in Microsoft Word for example and with just one click your label is printed and ready.

There is no need to refill the ink either because it’s thermal printing. All the Dymo Labelwriter range is thermal printing so no expensive ink or toner cartridges needed. The only supplies you need are labels.

The little Dymo Labelwriter must be very slow if its very small?

Nope. It takes just 1 to 1.5 seconds and it doesnt make a heavy noise either. By teh time you have printed it and walk over to where you keep it - it’s ready to peel and stick.

Features & Benefits

• Eliminates the hassle of printing labels with a standard office printer.

• Direct thermal printing means you never change a ribbon, toner or ink cartridges. The only supplies you ever need are the labels.

• Fast print speed. Just 1-1/2 seconds per label. Very quiet.

• High resolution printing means crisp text, graphics, photos and barcodes.

• Includes easy to use DYMO Label Software that makes it simple to design labels and manage address books.

• Includes add-ins for instant printing from Microsoft Word, Outlook, QuickBooks, ACT!, Goldmine, Palm Desktop version 4 or later, WordPerfect® and more. LabelWriter also prints from other programs through standard print drivers.

• Easy to share over your Windows or Apple Macintosh network.

• Includes the free DYMO Software Developers Kit (SDK). The SDK lets you develop support for the LabelWriter into your custom application in minutes. Includes tools for all major development languages.

• Note: The LabelWriter 400 is NOT compatible with DYMO Stamps software.

You better believe it! Catherine Zeta Jones raked in a whopping £1.5 million in salary and expenses for advertising hair care product called Lux which is made by Unilever.

You are not going to see it here in the UK though; it was filmed in Prague and will be shown in China and Japan.

However here is the clip for you:

Source

Instructables shows you how to build the Starship Enterprise out of office supplies. You’ll need 3 medium bull dog clips, 1 large bull dog clip, pens, 3 CDs, glue, tape and a marker.

Build the Starship Enterprise

Show someone you love them (in a non-sexual harassment way) by making them an origami flower out of post it notes

Origami Post It

Impress your colleagues, though not necessarily your boss, by doing magic with paperclips

Magic with Paperclips

Re-enact your favourite medieval battle scenes and invade a nearby desk using your very own office stationery trebuchet (i.e. catapult type thingy)

Office Supply Trebuchet

Pop some bubble wrap. And if you haven’t got any try the virtual alternative.

Virtual bubble wrap

We are all doing our bit for the environment, whether it’s recycling with the help our local councils as they provide coloured bins or off our own backs but what if we were forced to do it through the purchases we make?

Nowadays the vast majority of us recycle paper, throwing out the piles of newspapers, magazines and the countless junk mail we receive – but how many of us then go out and buy recycled paper?

If we put paper out to be recycled why don’t we buy paper that has been recycled, completing the cycle fully?

Recycled paper is now alot cheaper than ever and may cost just a few pence more than ’virgin’ or brand new paper so what if manufacturers decided to no longer produce cheap brand new paper and instead only offered us a version that was more environmentally friendly – maybe not totally 100% recycled but nonetheless ‘greener’?

I doubt many would notice the difference – especially as the idea of cheap copier paper is to print non important work at home and at work for internal documents for filing etc.

If you look at the cheap 5 Star range of copier paper – the descriptions are virtually the same:

5 Star Office Value Copier Paper Multifunctional 80gsm 500 Sheets per Ream A4 White [1 Ream]

And

5 Star Office Copier Paper Multifunctional 80gsm 500 Sheets per Ream A4 White [1 Ream]

Yet the second one, which costs around 50p more is manufactured using FSC pulp from mixed sources.

The second idea is to tax virgin paper increasing the price. Maybe slightly more complicated (!) to implement but I’m sure this would have an effect on the price conscious consumer.

If virgin paper was £1.50 - £3.00 more than the recycled paper would that change a consumer’s habit?

If you currently changed from virgin paper to recycled paper for home or office – how are you finding it? How would you feel if you were faced with just one option when it came to budget copier paper which was recycled or at least more ‘greener’ paper?

Whistle Ink is one of the leading and largest office supplies product information sites that give extra value information about office products before customers buy.