Hey, Gift-Givers!

There’s a lot of effort that goes into gift-giving this time of year; when the time comes for our loved ones to open their gifts from us, we want that moment to be perfect. This moment can be blown, however, through no fault of the gift-giver. It’s crummy, but it happens: orders sometimes aren’t delivered until after it’s too late.

Everyone here at Everything Summer Camp, appreciates the importance of gift-giving and wants to help make sure that your gifting goes off without a hitch this year. There’s nothing more irritating than making sure that you’ve placed your online order well-enough in advance and not receiving it by the time you need it!

You can make sure that this doesn’t happen to you by ordering from Everything Summer Camp!

To ensure no confusion, I’d like to call your attention to the handy-dandy holiday map that we refer to this time of year. Thanks to this helpfully color-coded map, there won’t be any confusion about how early you need to place your order with Everything Summer Camp so you can receive it in time.    Of course delivery times will vary based on where you live in the country. We like the old adage, ‘Better Safe Than Sorry’. That’s why I’m giving you the magic numbers of 1:00pm on December 17. That’s the time and date that everybody in the contiguous United States can go off of for guaranteed delivery by December 24.

This time and date may be early for some of you. Everything Summer Camp is based in northwestern Wisconsin, so if you live in Wisconsin, most parts of Minnesota, or another nearby area, you can get away with placing your order as late as 1:00pm on December 21.

Happy holidays, Everyone. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Trail Mixers!

If this ultimate treat for the road is one of your favorites, then today’s Blog is definitely right up your alley. I’m posting about ‘Trail Mix Day’ in advance today in order to give you enough preparation time before August 31 arrives. Be sure to get to the store for all your ingredients ahead of time so you can have your trail mix made up and ready to enjoy ON National Trail Mix Day.

You might hear a bunch about when it was invented or who gave trail mix its name. You might see dates that go back to 1968 or even 1910, but, truthfully, trail mix is ANCIENT!

Ideal for any outing, from hikers to soldiers, this lightweight, long-lasting, easy-to-store, protein-packed, nutritious, and tasty snack has been a popular favorite among nomadic tribes thousands of years ago. It wasn’t called Trail Mix back then, but it was essentially the same thing. From scouts to pioneers, hunters and cowboys, people have always put their own spin on this ancient high-energy Travel Snack.

Requiring no special storage nor cooking preparation, many different cultures resorted to this snack as it was the easiest method of storing food for long periods of time. Native Americans had an interesting spin on this snack. They called it pemmican: dried buffalo, moose, and caribou meat along with berries. It lasted the Natives months and delivered lots of energy in a tasty and satisfying, little snack.

You’ll find a wide range of trail mix variations. The snack has gathered a number of names as well. Here are just a few:

Scroggin
If you wanted trail mix and you lived somewhere like New Zealand or the United Kingdom, you would ask for some ‘Scroggin’.

Studentenfutter
German for ‘student feed,’ this snack is not only popular for hikers, it’s also known to be a cheap snack among on-the-go students who are looking for an affordable, yet nutritional, snack.

GORP
It’s been called GORP by many, which according to some, stands for Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts—OR—Granola Oats, Raisins, and Peanuts—OR—Gobs Of Raw Protein. But then, it’s also been said that Scroggin stands for Sultanas, Carob, Raisins, Orange peel, Grains, Glucose, Imagination, and Nuts.

However, trail mix likely gets its name Gorp from the verb listed in The Oxford English Dictionary which means, ‘to eat greedily.’

No matter what you call it, be sure you to find some for yourself whether you get creative and make your own or if you just enjoy a packaged mix from the store. Click here for the creative inspiration of over 80 trail mix recipes! And, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Everything Summer Camp Fans!

While our competitors will have you ordering for camp a whole month in advance or emptying your wallet to get your stuff on time, we ship your order out in days, not weeks. When your order is placed at Everything Summer Camp, it goes through our system and, after any personalized items on the order are made, the order goes to shipping.

When the camp season hits, we have to be ready for it in multiple ways which is why we either stock all our products or make them in-house. This way, we ship your order fast. It’s certainly a team effort among departments, but in the end, every single order goes through the shipping department. The season inevitably gives these guys a workout every year!

Welcome to shipping.

This giant warehouse where we stock all of our camp trunks and other products (aside from our customizable graphics and camp clothing) is where the magic happens.

An extremely busy place—this time of year especially—the summer shipping crew works methodically thanks to shipping manager, Ryan’s, careful orchestration and execution of the day. These guys get your quality camp gear from Everything Summer Camp out to you on time every time!

The details of each order is printed and all the orders that need to ship that day are pushed out the door first. The crew goes to work “picking orders”. Orders without customizable products get “picked” from our stocked products. The order is then looked over to make sure that it’s complete and ready to be shipped out to you.

Each order is boxed up then. The shipping labels are printed and the order is seen into the back of a UPS truck and delivered to you. A fun and moving work environment, the shipping department is great at what they do! As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Everything Summer Camp Fans!

When you can’t find something in a grocery store, you flag down an employee and ask for help. You can’t really do that when shopping an online store; instead, we urge you to give us a call or use our site’s Live Chat when you need assistance. We love talking to our customers. That’s why, every year, we put a great effort into equipping ourselves with excellent representatives to answer your questions. Call us at 1-800-535-2057.

Welcome to the call center.   

A buzzing office with constant chatter throughout its open hours—which are extended in the busy season—you’ll find our seasonal crew at their stations in the call center taking calls and placing orders. Thanks to this helpful team, you can order over the phone with absolute convenience. The most work you’ll have to do is dialing 1-800-535-2057.

Along with taking orders over the phone, some of our representatives make calls to our customers, calling them back about their particular orders if a question happens to arise about a personalized product or any other reason that gives us hesitation toward fulfilling the order.

From keeping meticulous count in inventory to brimming with product knowledge, our call center representatives are quick on their feet and ready to answer your questions as soon as you ask. And when they’re not busy on the phones or helping customers on Live Chat, they stay occupied with stocked product packaging (which, this time of year, is a lot coming in and going out)!

But despite how busy we get at Everything Summer Camp, we always strive to keep our work environment fun—something that I think is reflected in their work. When you call us (at 1-800-535-2057), you’re sure to get a pleasant and enthusiastic greeting. So go ahead and give us a call when you visit our site. And, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

And, oh yeah—did I mention our number is 1-800-535-2057?

Hey, Everything Summer Camp Fans!

Here at Everything Summer Camp, we offer a great deal of customizable products. We call them graphics. From our Name Labels to Call Me Cards, Nameplates and LidSkinz, we offer so many personalized products that we have a shop, separate from our main building, entirely dedicated to our graphic production.

Welcome to the print shop.

It’s an impressive place with a carousel for screen printing along with an industrial dryer, two embroidery machines, a Direct to Garment (DTG) printer, two heat presses, three wide-format printers and a whole lot more.

The summer graphics crew begins with design work on the computer to create your personalized order.  Working with programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, products like Nameplates, Stick-On Labels, and Duffel Bag Patches, each order is specifically designed and printed out on sublimation paper.

Sublimation paper is special paper that is used for the process of sublimation. What is sublimation? It’s the transference of ink from one medium to another (like a piece of paper to a nameplate), by means of heating the materials so much and so fast that the ink skips a liquid phase and turns straight to a gas. This causes the print to dye onto the initially blank nameplate so that it now bears YOUR design!

This time of year, we dedicate one of our three wide-format printers entirely to Clothing Name Labels. We get hundreds of these orders every week! It’s so many that it basically becomes one person’s job throughout the camp season!

We also create our own Clothing Stamps by means of light exposure to gel packs. We cover the gel pack with a negative that has everyone’s name printed on it. The exposure unit hardens the gel where the names designate, leaving the rest of the gel unexposed and unhardened. We simply clean off the excess gel and cut out our rubbery stamp names from the gel sheet we made.

Don’t forget about Lid Skinz! These awesome full color vinyl decals are designed completely by YOU and then printed from one of our other wide-format printers. We then send the prints through our laminating machine to apply a protective laminate that provides protection more durable than paint! The Lid Skinz are then applied to the tops of our trunks beneath the hardware. They look really cool!

As if that’s not enough, we also personalize Laundry Bags at the shop with one of our two embroidery machines.  All of our camp clothes are printed here as well by means of sublimation, embroidery, or screen-printing. Needless to say, it’s always a hoppin’ place in the summertime! Give us an order of your own to personalize and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John