#Coasterstories with Prachi Pundeer

Storytelling is something we do everyday, whether it’s posting a memorable moment to Instagram, adding our favorite pins to a Pinterest board or chatting with friends over coffee. We share our moments and stories to help us make sense of the world, and to feel a part of something bigger. These stories are the bond we build between our past and our future.

Photo Stories
With this in mind, we’re introducing Coaster Stories. A monthly photo project for all of us to experiment in storytelling around a particular theme.

Each month we’ll announce a Coaster Story theme and accompanying Pinterest board on the blog and through the newsletter. On Pinterest, we’ll have lots inspiration and photo tips to help you along the way. On Instagram, we’ll post a #coasterstories photo each week. To wrap everything up, we’ll post our favorite photos and everyone who’s participated on the blog.

For April, we’re Celebrating Spring and all the renewal it inspires. Our guest photographer this month is Prachi Pundeer. She’ll be taking over the Coastermatic Instagram feed with her weekly celebrations of spring.

Feeling inspired?
Join us with your weekly #coasterstories on Instagram and follow our Celebrating Spring board on Pinterest.

More on Prachi


Prachi hails from India and is an avid traveler who likes to tell her stories through photographs. When she’s not snapping her surroundings, she is an Experience Designer at Yahoo where she explores the future of communication tools. She lives in San Francisco.

Make a set for your sweetheart

Valentines Day is right around the corner, how awesome would it be to have a coaster set that is all about you and your boo?

Making a set for that special someone is easy! Start by having a think through all of the places, moments, and things that mean something to you both. For my guy, I picked out the photos above: Us looking out over Wellington, NZ; the fantastic view we had from a trip to Hawaii; a shot of Falling Water - the first road trip we went on; and finally our first breakfast together.

Now, with your list great moments in hand (or in your head) - Start a set on Coastermatic.com and pick out a few photos from your Instagram feed. Hit Add to cart, and boom! Now you have the best Valentines Day present ever.

Uh oh! Are you running late with your V-Day planning?
Don't worry, take a screen shot of your set before you hit Add to Cart and pop it into a card.

Need some help thinking through fun moments together?  
Here’s a list to get your brain firing:

  • Where you first met
  • An inside joke
  • Where you had your first date
  • The first time you said “I love you”
  • Your first place together 
  • That night you had way too much fun
  • A tropical destination you visited
  • A favorite dinner spot
  • Kisses
  • Flowers he got you
  • A plastic crocodile you got him

Have fun, and think: on February 14th, and every day after, you’ll both get to relive fun moments together every time you need a coaster. Share those moments with us on Instagram by tagging your pics with #coastermatic!

 

 

News: Price Increase, $6 shipping here to stay

Happy New Year!!
I'm back from #coasterbreak, and so is our manufacturer. I went on a wonderful trip to New Zealand to visit with friends and family, and our manufacturer went through some big changes over the same period. Big thanks to everyone for being patient over the last couple of weeks. Now that everything is settling down on the production front, we'll be back to normal coaster turn around times this week.

Price Increase
There are lots of new things in store for 2015, and the first thing is a price increase. The big changes I mentioned with our manufacturer unfortunately mean that they've had to raise their prices for the first time since Coastermatic started. Working with a USA based manufacturer is something that's really important to Coastermatic's vision, and the fact that they make coasters of an exceptional quality means we'll be working with them as we move into the future. 

So what does this mean for you? It means Coastermatic sets will rise from $25 to $28 on Feb 1, 2015. We'll also be updating our wholesale pricing. If you'd like to learn more about wholesale, just drop me a line, [email protected].

$6 Shipping
No one likes to pay for shipping, its a fact of life, but our coasters are fairly heavy, since they're ceramic and not plastic. To try and make peace with this, over the holiday period we trialled $6 flat rate shipping for all US orders. It's as close to free as we can go, and it also simplifies the process for you. No matter how many sets of coasters you buy, we shipped them all to you for $6, easy.

The trail went really well, so $6 shipping is here to stay. Go test it out by ordering 2 sets ;).

Other New Things
I'm excited about 2015 and all of the improvements we'll get to work on over the next 12 months. One of the biggest things to start chipping away at is adding drag and drop to the website. I know a few of you have done some odd hacks to get around posting things to your Instagram account, and it's much appreciated! By summer time though, that'll all be in the past.

Be sure to check the blog for updates on all the various things I'll be working on. 

Coasterbreak

A huge #coasterTHANKS to everyone who joined us for #coastergiving this holiday season. 

Now, we're going #coasterbreak through to the second week of January. All orders placed after 12pm EST on December 18 will go in the queue and will be printed as soon as we get back.

In the meantime, happy holidays to everyone out there, and we'll see you in 2015!! 

Making a travel set!

Since we’ve been on the topic of set themes for the last few blog posts (Throwback family coasters, Lois at the beach, Phil's coasters), I thought I’d add another one to the mix: Travel coasters.

Have you been on a trip to an exciting place recently? Went to visit friends and had a great time? Cruised around with some elephants somewhere? All of those moments can come together to make a coaster set to remember your trip by (or a great gift for someone you stayed with)

Here’s a set I made recently:


These are all photos taken the summer of 2013, when Coasterica was located in Hawaii, and Tom was still par to of the team. It was a great summer - We sat out by the pool, went to the beach, visited Waikiki, and also worked on Coastermatic through a transitional time.

Now I’ve got this set on my coffee table, and when I look at any of those coasters I get to remember what an interesting, challenging, and wonderful summer it was.

Got some travel memories you want to relive?
Did you go on a trip with someone special?
Make a set of those moments now.