[kit-tracy]

Background: I am supposed to pick out my own Christmas present this year. My wife and kids are buying me new chips and they want to put a picture of one of the kids on one denomination, 2nd child on 2nd denom, etc. (4 kids total) and Christmas 2005 on the last denomination.

My question: I am looking at composite chips and labels for them. Is is better for me to go ahead and buy labels and run them through my 4 color laser printer on my own or pay someone else to resize the photos and print the labels? I am leaning away from buying the chips and having the labels done at the same time because I think it will personalize the chips even more if the kids put the labels on.

I am open to any of the options.

[Captn_All_In]

Well if it was me...I would get someone else to make the labels! I do not have those skills!! If I did have them, well I would give it a shot!

Also I would get the kids to help put them on. Much more personalized...and much easier when more hands are involved!!


Good luck!

[Fins]

I'd price it out... but I'd probably go with the pros...

Have you read Jason's article?

[KYBill]

Jason does great work.

[OnTheButton]

I did my own label design, printing and application.

If I could do it over again, I wouldn't, lol.

Not that I don't like the final product, I dig it alot, but it was a total pain, and I ended up having to print almost 3 times as many labels to get as many good sheets out as I needed. Stanard laser printers can have almost 1/8" creep, and there is no way to control it. You end up with a lot of bad sheets.

The guys who do these labels for a business (Jason listed in the post above is one of the best from everything I've heard) use totally different machines than you would find in an office.

If I were starting from scratch, I would have still done the design myself, but paid for the labels to be made, and saved my stress for the act of putting them on, which is no easy task and SHOULD NOT BE DONE by persons without extreme amounts of patience.

Expect to spend about 1.5 hours (uninterrupted) to put 2 labels (both sides) onto 200 chips.

My wife and I, working together, put labels on 1000 chips in about 3 hours.

[austin5string]

That's a cute idea for some chips. I think I'd do an "artsy" type version of the pics if it were me, though.

For some reason, pictures of kids on poker chips just reminds me of those booths at the mall where you can get a picture on a mug or a tshirt or a money clip or whatever - a bit cheezy. I'm sure that you'll love them regardless, but will they impress the guys you play with? Of course, I know that's not the motivation behind the design - just throwing it out as a thinking point.

Photoshop has some cool artistic filters that might be fun.

Also, although it might make it more special to have the kids help out, I'm far too much of a perfectionist to attempt that. What ages are your kids? Sounds likely that half the labels will be crooked.

Just my two cents,

~John - who isn't really as much of a curmudgeon as that post makes him sound LOL

[kit-tracy]

I expect ALL of the labels to be crooked. The kids are aged 16, 13, 11 and 6. Those at the game with kids will be impressed and those that do not have kids won't be. The ones with kids will be jealous because their kids did not take hours and hours creating something unique and thoughtful for them like my kids are going to. It is something the kids want to do for me to remind me of them while I play. My 6-year old makes me a different poker picture every week so I can use it as a placemat for my chips at the game. My 11-year old buys me a piece of hard candy with her own money to bring me luck. Everytime I win for the night, they each get a share of the profits. At our house, poker night is for the family, even if I play most of the games elsewhere. My wife and kids rent movies and enjoy their movie night without me. I am really looking forward to this. I think the chips will be perfect with every crooked label and every imperfection simply because of the time and effort they are taking on it. I like the artsy theme though. I use Photoshop 7.0 frequently at work on the web site and paper catalog so I can do some pretty special designs with it. I was thinking a head shot of the oldest child on the largest denom, 2nd oldest on the 2nd largest, etc. The kids want pictures of the different winning hands on the backs of the chips with a logo of some type. They are still discussing what type of logo at this point. I will keep you updated. Thank you for your suggestions. Please keep them coming.

[kit-tracy]

I love my coffee cup with the kids' pictures on it. I have it at work with me today.

[austin5string]

A stunningly well laid out argument. I hereby retract everything I said - sounds like a perfect plan and lots of fun. Keep in mind that I don't have kids, so poker is much less of a "family affair" unless you count the fact that my fiancee likes to play and some friends of ours have screaming kids around when we play at their house. LOL

Anxious to see what you come up with. I can tell it's going to be a thoroughly rewarding project!

~John

[House of Payne]

Originally Posted by kit-tracy

I was thinking a head shot of the oldest child on the largest denom, 2nd oldest on the 2nd largest, etc.

Perhaps a 5th chip denomination is in order with the wife's picture on it. Suggest you reserve the largest denom for her picture. You could say that she comes first or she's worth more to you... Such sucking up might be good for another poker night kitchen pass.

Mike