Evolution of a Ball Band

If you’ve been a customer of Critical Sheep over the years, you’ll notice the ball band has changed a few times. Obviously, this is because we learn as we go through the motions of building the business and we learn what works best and what’s going to be most cost-effective for us so we don’t have to drive costs up just so you can get a skein of yarn and we don’t go bankrupt.

Our first ball bands were simple cardstock that hung from the skein with a cute punch. That puncher is still in my collection, but we won’t use it again because man it hurt to punch those things! We attached the tag to the skeins with a length of crochet cotton. Needless to say, this was one of my least-favorite things about the dyeing process.

 

 

 

Second, we considered our options with wrappers. Do we wrap around the entire skein or do we wrap just in the top of the loop? We decided on both: D4 would have the full wrap, and D10 would have the loop wrap. The paper quality was the same, but cutting those tags was such a pain and I hated the way it printed that I found it hard to stay in love with the ideas.

 

 

Third, we tightened up the crochet cotton and bought some cute cardboard tags, some vinyl stickers and labels to create our labels. This works, but it adds a lot of steps to the process. We bought over 1k tags, so we’re using them until they’re gone, but we love the newest iteration.

 

 

 

Today’s tags are now on business cardstock with a hole punched in the corner. The information on the card is legible and clear, with space for the color name. Our tags are now affixed with a simple pear pin, so you get a free stitch marker with a purchase of any skein of yarn. The cards are of strong stock so you don’t have to worry about ripping them as soon as you get them in your hands, and it looks clean and professional; something we’ve worked hard to maintain throughout all these iterations.