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Large Format Four Color Printing - Great for newsletters and booklets!

Heidelberg Folder

Request an estimate at estimating@burnsmp.com

Mail being addressed with state of the art inkjet addressing equipment

Inkjet addressing, applying permits, post it notes, live stamps or messages on the mailing panel is possible with our Kirk Rudy System.  Tabbing is done  inline for quicker turn-around.

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A reminder that effective March 29, 2009 the new address placement standards for commercial flat-size mail goes into effect at the United States Post Office.  An example of flat-size mail is an 8.5×11 newsletter.  The new rule for this example would be that the addressing area for the newsletter would have to be in the top half of the page.  This also applies to periodicals, Standard Mail and Package Services flats mailed at automation, presorted, or carrier route prices.

For Standard Mail and Periodicals mailings that are not in compliance, the appropriate First-Class prices apply. Presorted Bound Printed Matter, Media Mail, or Library Mail flats with non compliant addresses are charged the non presorted flats prices within the same class of mail.

Designers, advertising agencies, non profits listen up. We are talking more money for postage folks and to save money all you have to do is put your addresses in the correct area.

If you want the the rules that the USPS publishes, see below.

The new ddress placement standards require the delivery address in the upper portion of all Periodicals, Standard Mail, Bound Printed Matter, Media Mail, and Library Mail flat-size pieces mailed at automation, pre­sorted, or carrier route prices. Mailers may place the address parallel or perpendicular to the top edge, but not upside down as read in relation to the top edge. The new standards define “upper portion” as the top half of the mailpiece. Mailers are encouraged to place the address as close to the top edge as possible, while maintaining a 1/8–inch clearance from every edge.

The following standards apply to enveloped, polywrapped, or card-style Periodicals, Standard Mail, Bound Printed Matter, Media Mail, and Library Mail flats mailed at pre­sorted, automation, or carrier route prices:

a.The “top” of the mailpiece is either of the shorter edges.

b.The entire delivery address must be within the top half of the mailpiece (see Exhibit 2.2), except under 2.2c or 2.2d. Optimal placement is at the top edge (while maintaining the 1/8-inch clearance requirement).

c. If a vertical address will not fit entirely within the top half, the address may cross the midpoint if it is placed within 1 inch of the top edge.

d. If the delivery address is placed on an insert poly­wrapped with the host piece:

1. The address must not appear on a component that rotates within the bag.

2. The address must remain visible throughout the addressed component’s range of motion.

3. The insert must be affixed to maintain the address entirely in the top half throughout processing and delivery or, if not affixed, the insert must maintain at least the beginning 0.5 inch of the address in the top half. The “beginning 0.5 inch” means the first half-inch of the recipient, delivery address, and city/state/ZIP Code lines, and not the end of each line.

Correct Placement of Addressing on Flats

If you are still not clear on the new rules, contact your local Mail Piece Design Analyst at the USPS bulk mail unit.

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Kate, Phyllis and Ken

Things are changing rapidly in our world, some good and some not so good.  One of the good things, in my opinion, is the availability of using the web to market business.  Our business is such that our customer does not have to be located in the city where our business is located.  In fact, we have several customers who are out of state, some as far away as Alaska.   Graphic files can be downloaded, along with data base files and we can print and mail for our customers in a timely and efficient manner.

I recently decided to add this blog to our website for the purpose of sharing information about mailing and printing and to let potential customers get to know us a little better.  I know the very basics of blogging,  but last night I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased Blogging for Dummies.   It almost overwhelmed me with what all I did not know.  I had to sit back for a moment and tell myself that I could not learn it all at once, but I could learn it with just one step at a time.  I have never let ignorance stop me from doing anything I really wanted to do.  It probably should have stopped me many times but they say, “fools rush in where angels dare to tread”. So bear with me on this blogging thing, I am only up to Chapter I.

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Rose from last summer

We have a key thing in our family.  Our daughters have the worst history, especially Joy.  One time we picked her up at the airport and took her to her car.  She lost her keys , that we had just handed her, from the time she got out of our car to the time she moved her suitcase over to her car.  It is still a mystery of what happened to those keys.  Fortunately, Ken had another set of keys with him to give her.  She probably won’t be happy with me, telling this story when she reads this blog.  She knows that she has problems with keeping up with keys and has actually taken steps to make sure that she is not locked out.  That shows how smart she really is.  Maybe she won’t be too mad if I say how smart she is. There actually is a point to this story and the point is that Ken had to send someone to the house to give me my keys this morning.  As she was bringing the keys to me, she walked by my Rose bushes and noticed that the roses  were putting out new growth in preparation of blooming soon. Mother Nature has a way of reminding us that winter is almost over and it is time for new growth.  I hope this spring brings new growth to the economy and better times for this nation and it’s citizens.

I can’t wait to see the roses bloom, looking at them gives me a lot of pleasure and the care that they require helps me to relax and forget about the cares of the day. Cares such as where are my car keys?  I will be late for my appointment.

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I like my dentist and his employees.  Year after year I go and get my teeth cleaned and occasionally have a crown or some other dental procedure and eventually, they start to feel like your friends.  They ask about my children who have left home and are now having children of their own.  They want to know how old my Grand Son is now and is he playing any sports.  I inquire of their family and knowing that my dentist has small children and that they have had a stomach virus, I want to know if they are all better.  I have admired pictures of his babies as they were born and knowing now that they are toddlers,  find it hard to believe that they are that old.

You know, it is like the old Cheers show, where every body knows your name.  I like going to businesses where they know my name and it is a cliche but I feel like they are really glad I came.  That is how I want to make my customers feel when they come in to bring their printing and mailing jobs.  We get to know them and like seeing them when they come by or I go by their office.  I have one customer who moved to Atlanta and works for the Girl Scouts but she did not quit doing business with me.  We just gained another customer in Atlanta.  She still has family in Knoxville so she occasionally stops by when she is in town, to say hello and the best part is that sometimes she brings Girl Scout cookies. Just don’t tell my dentist!

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Crisco Baby

Miss Nancy, who is in her 70’s, works part time in our mailing department.  Everybody loves Miss Nancy.  She is a great cook and is especially good at making homemade jelly and preserves.  A couple of years ago, she brought me a jar of her peach preserves.  They were the best peach preserves I had ever put in my mouth.  My youngest daughter, Joy, who lives in Brentwood, TN, was visiting and tasted some of the peach preserves on my homemade biscuits.  I have been making biscuits for 46 years, every morning for 35 years, until Ken, my husband, had to have four heart bypasses.  That was the end of that and now I make them occasionally.  Joy said, “that is the best thing I have ever tasted out of a jar.”  She wanted to learn how to make the preserves and so we formulated a plan that when we came back from our vacation in Florida, we would stop at Durbin Farms in Alabama and buy peaches. She would come to Knoxville and we would learn how to make Miss Nancy’s peach preserves.  The peaches have to ripen for several days after purchase so about 5 days later Joy came to Knoxville.  Miss Nancy agreed to come to my house to teach us how to make her famous peach preserves.  Miss Nancy had told us to get four bushels of peaches, two for her and two for us.  When she saw the amount of peaches that we had purchased, she was shocked because she was thinking boxes, not bushels so we had twice the amount of peaches that we should have had.  We are thinking this is not a bad thing because we really liked the preserves.  Did I mention that Joy has a baby that at the time was 12 months old.  She is the peach of our life for sure.  So here we are making peach preserves, the baby is crawling around and having fun.  We decided that after about two hours that we know what to do so Miss Nancy leaves to work on her own peaches.  I was chopping the peaches and Joy was cooking the preserves, which had to be timed for a certain amount of minutes when I glanced over at the open pantry where the baby had found a large bottle of Crisco oil. The bottle was plastic so I thought it would be fine to let her just play with the bottle. Was I ever wrong!  I glanced over again and she had the lid off the bottle and was pouring it out all over the floor and on her.  Joy could not stop cooking the peaches that she was timing, so I was on my own with the oil and the baby. I just pulled her little dress off and sat her in an empty peach box until I could wipe up some of the oil off the floor.  In the meantime she decides that she likes the feel of the oil and starts rubbing it in her hair and on her face.  We had to stop making peach preserves and give her a bath and scrub the floor.  Have you ever tried to get a bottle of Crisco off the kitchen floor?  Not an easy job, but finally I used Dawn dish washing detergent and it took the grease up.

We made 95 jars of peach preserves that day and we are still enjoying them.  Miss Nancy has also given us her recipe for homemade apple butter that she makes in a crock pot. Another trip to Florida and Durbin Peach Farms is in the works for this summer.  After tasting the peach preserves that we made, my oldest daughter, Kathy wants to be in on the peach preserve making this summer.  I think we have started a new family tradition. I will be sure to hide the Crisco oil.

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