MyPunchblog

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

This week (Feb 7-14, 2010) is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. To help raise funding and awareness for this important issue, Punchbowl has partnered with The Children’s Heart Foundation to create a campaign called “Spread the Love.” During the month of February, Punchbowl will make a donation to The Children’s Heart Foundation for every recipient of a MyPunchbowl eCard.

Congenital heart disease is considered to be the most common birth defect, and is a leading cause of birth-defect related deaths worldwide. The goal of The Children’s Heart Foundation is to bring health, hope and happiness to children impacted by congenital heart defects.

There are millions of families affected by congenital heart disease. This one story really touched me, but there are many others like it:

Cora Mae McCormick was born on November 30, 2009. Cora’s mom, Kristine, had a normal pregnancy, labor, and delivery. When Cora was born she displayed no signs of a bad heart. She brought her parents overwhelming joy and happiness from the moment she came into their lives.

On December 6, Cora died in her mother’s arms suddenly and unexpectedly. She was only five days old. Her parents rushed her to the hospital after she stopped breathing, but doctors could not revive her.

The preliminary report says that Cora was born with a congenital heart defect. Kristine is sharing her story to raise awareness about CHD, to make sure other babies get screened, and to raise money for CHD research.

One way to help raise awareness and funding is to participate in “Spread the Love.” Send free Valentine’s Day eCards to your friends and family and a donation will be made to The Children’s Heart Foundation for each valid, unique email address on your list. The more you send to, the more money we donate!

For more information about the Spread the Love campaign and to send a free eCard, visit: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/spread-the-love

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Well, it’s Groundhog Day (again), and this year is a special one for the Punchbowlers. As usual, Groundhog Day is a company holiday — so we all get the day off. But this year we organized a volunteer day (for the record, completely optional for employees and guilt-free). In the afternoon this Groundhog Day, we’ll be painting a few rooms at a local homeless shelter. We’ve been calling it “Phil’s Philanthropy Day” after the venerable Punxsutawney Phil. After waking up early to watch the grand prognostication, I can’t think of any better way to spend the afternoon.

And that’s not all….

This year I’m very excited to report that Punchbowl announced an official partnership with Groundhog.org and the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. This is a partnership that makes me happy on a number of levels. First, it’s great exposure for Punchbowl, with an audience that matches our target demographic. And second, it’s been a long-standing goal of mine to find an official way to be involved in the Groundhog Day festivities. Here’s a quick snippet from the blog post I wrote on my start-up CEO blog about this partnership announcement:

For 2010, I wanted to do something special for Groundhog Day– so on a whim, I picked up the phone and called the folks who developed Groundhog.org. I told them that I wanted to partner with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and create an eCards site. After a little negotiation, we signed an agreement with Groundhog.org to become the exclusive provider of Groundhog Day eCards. This morning, we made the official Groundhog Day press announcement.

And last but not least, my wife and I are planning our 14th annual Groundhog Day party for this coming Saturday. This year’s theme is Disco, and with the combination of disco party supplies, unique party favors, disco costumes, and a 70s play list, we have planned an awesome party. We’re expecting about 30-35 people this year. Of course, we’ve used MyPunchbowl to plan the entire event from start to finish, and it’s been a great experience.

Groundhog Day is all about community, revelry, and celebration of the ordinary. So whether you take a moment to turn your attention to Gobblers Knob or you send someone a free Groundhog Day eCard, please remember the infamous words of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club:

“There are many important events in life — and Groundhog Day is not one of them.”

Happy Groundhog Day!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Do you believe Christmas is this week? If you’re like me (and most people), you probably still have a few more gifts to buy. Most likely for those people on your list that are the hardest to shop for!

If you’re still trying to find the perfect gift - and don’t want to fight the masses at the stores - we have a terrific, unique gift idea for you. Over a thousand actually…

Earlier this year we introduced MyPunchbowl Experiences, an extraordinary selection of experience gifts that engage the recipient’s personality and passions. Ranging from indoor skydiving, first flight lesson, helicopter tour to model for a day, wine making, glass blowing, or a private safari, the possibilities, like the memories they create are endless.

With so many experiences from which to choose in categories such as Wine & Gourmet, Sport & Adventure, and Arts & Culture, there is something for every age and every budget.

To celebrate the holidays, we’re excited to offer $20 off any MyPunchbowl Experience purchase of $100 or more. Use the code “QUICK” at checkout. Browse experiences now.

Make sure to choose the Email or Print It Now delivery options - you’ll have a really cool, unique gift in time for Christmas that fits perfectly inside a cute card!

Happy shopping!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

It’s early December and according to my calendar it’s about time to send holiday cards to friends and family, or at least start thinking about it. Fortunately, MyPunchbowl gives you two great options to create customized holiday greetings this year.

Launched just over a year ago, our free eCards have become hugely popular for sending personalized holiday greetings. Once you browse the holiday designs and find a card you like, you can customize it a number of ways. You can change the background colors, add a family photo and/or video, type a note on the card, and even include a longer text update next to the card.

Send your holiday eCards to everyone on your list immediately or schedule the card to deliver at a later date/time (on Christmas Eve, perhaps?). You can also share eCards on Facebook and Twitter which is helpful when you don’t have everyone’s email addresses. Here are some of our holiday eCards:

If you still prefer to send your holiday greeting cards in the mail, we have an option for you as well: custom printed holiday cards from the MyPunchbowl Custom Print Shop. Choose from hundreds of designs then create your custom printed holiday cards by adding a photo and special message.

Want your printed cards quickly? You can receive them in as few as three days! Browse printed holiday card designs now.

With hundreds of free eCards and custom printed holiday cards, we hope making your holiday cards this year is fun (and easy)!

Happy holidays!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

A few months back MyPunchbowl launched a new personalized party product on our site – MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda. Personalized soda comes in many classic flavors such as Root Beer and Cream Soda, among others. To personalize your soda, choose your flavor, upload your own photo for the front of the label, then add a personalized message for the back of the label. Pretty cool, right? Check out the soda that our CEO, Matt Douglas created.

For the holidays, our partners at Jones Soda have made some special holiday-inspired flavors available for you to customize for your holiday parties. Evergreen Apple, Snowdrift Soda, Reindeer Root Beer, and Holiday Cheer are the new flavors for this holiday season (just look for the holly icon at the top of the bottle to identify holiday flavors!).

MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda makes a great addition to any party but with these holiday flavors you can definitely add a little something special to your Christmas or holiday party this year. Order your personalized soda soon as these special holiday flavors are only available for a limited time!

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

Today we are excited to announce our partnership with Oriental Trading Company. As the leader in start to finish party planning, MyPunchbowl now offers the huge range of Oriental Trading products to our customers. Here’s the official announcement: 

MyPunchbowl.com today announced the launch of MyPunchbowl Party Supplies in partnership with Oriental Trading Company. The new Party Supplies portal powered by Oriental Trading is the perfect complement to MyPunchbowl’s award-winning start to finish party planning site. The announcement was made in conjunction with the start of the Shop.org tradeshow in Las Vegas.

As customers plan events and parties on MyPunchbowl.com, they can now shop from a massive selection of Oriental Trading Company’s best-selling party supplies. MyPunchbowl Party Supplies is organized by occasion and matches the types of parties that are most often planned on MyPunchbowl.com — kids and adult birthdays, baby showers, as well as Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s parties.

“We are thrilled to offer our fun and affordable Oriental Trading party supplies to the loyal customers of MyPunchbowl.com,” said Sam Taylor, CEO, Oriental Trading Company. “The common characteristics of our customers make this partnership a win-win solution for our business.”

Through technology developed by MyPunchbowl, inventory from Oriental Trading is updated on a nightly basis. The party supplies portal displays featured products as well as best sellers. After planning an event, MyPunchbowl.com customers can quickly and easily find party supplies that match the theme of the event they are planning. The site also features an integrated search engine to find relevant products among tens of thousands offered on the site.

“We found the ideal partner in Oriental Trading Company,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “As the nation’s largest direct marketer of party supplies, Oriental Trading provides our customers with party supplies that meet our customers’ wide array of party planning needs.”

Shop MyPunchbowl Party Supplies.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

A few weeks ago, we launched the latest personalized party product on MyPunchbowl — personalized soda. We partnered with our new friends at Jones Soda to provide a new area of our site called MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda.

Here are some of the great things you can do with MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda:

• Choose your flavor: try Root Beer, Creme Soda, Orange & Cream, Strawberry Lime, Pure Cane Cola, and many more
• Upload a photo: add some personality to your soda by uploading any photo on your computer or provide the URL of a high-res photo available on a web site
• Choose a 6 pack or 12 pack
• Add a customized saying on the back of your soda.

Add Personalized Soda to your party and your guests will be very impressed. They also make a great favors for your next get together or company event.

I didn’t want to wait for my next party to make some personalized soda, so I ordered some a few weeks ago. They came in and they look great. The root beer is pretty good too! So what are you waiting for? Go order some MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda today!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

We’re really excited today to announce our partnership with Excitations, the nation’s premier provider of unique experience gifts. Through this partnership, we now provide MyPunchbowl Experiences on our site.

Experience gifts, which range from hot air balloon rides to gourmet cooking classes, create memories for the recipient that will last a lifetime. They are exciting and unique, so it’s easy to see why these gifts are the newest way to celebrate milestone birthdays—including sweet sixteen, 21, 30, 40, and even 100.

MyPunchbowl Experiences offers an extraordinary selection of experiences that will engage the recipient’s personality and passions—ranging from skydiving, first flight lesson, helicopter tour, and stock car driving to model for a day, create your own wine, glass blowing and a private safari. The possibilities, like the memories they create, are endless—and there is something for every budget and age to enjoy.

MyPunchbowl Experiences is the latest addition to the start to finish party planning capabilities that are available on MyPunchbowl. Unlike other party planning sites that start and stop with the invitation, MyPunchbowl brings your party to life with ideas, invitations, party favors, gift registries, and even photo and video sharing, and more. With the addition of MyPunchbowl Experiences, you can now make your next party an unforgettable experience party.

Check out the official announcement and share it with your friends!