Cutcardstock.com began in 2006 as a dream while sitting at our dining room table. At this time Cindy began working with a paper supplier , but this paper supplier didn’t offer cardstock in sizes other than 8.5×11. Cindy began offering other small sizes of cards cutting them on a rotary cutter by hand. As more 5×7 and other cards began to sell, we saw a need for a larger cutter. We decided to purchase a table top power cutter. At the time, purchasing this cutter was a step of faith. We bought the cutter and had it shipped to us. It looked like new and we couldn’t wait to get it home and try it. After we unloaded it and plugged it in we discovered that it was missing the key to turn it on so we hired a locksmith to make a key for it, but it still wouldn’t turn on. We called a repairman and he gave us an estimate to fix it and his estimate was as much as we paid for the machine. Boy, were we caught in a dilemma. Do we fix our “great deal” or not? Our dream began to fade just a little because we were living on a tight budget. We decided to have it fixed. We carried this 200 pound cutter upstairs to one of our spare rooms and that became Cindy’s cutting room. She continued to make special cuts for
people and then deliver them each day to a paper company that would in turn ship them to their customers.
A few months went by and she began to use her creative mind once again. She thought , what if we could also offer a service to score the cardstock for the customers. She asked me if I would like to be in charge of that. I said sure, I’ll give it a try. Once again living on a tight budget we looked for a scoring machine and found one, but it cost several thousands of dollars. Thankfully, though my parents believed in us and helped us to buy the scoring machine. This too was carried upstairs and placed next to the cutter. Now I began to help cut and score cardstock paper after work. I had a lot to learn but I worked very hard at it.
During this time I was working full-time outside our home, and my wife was working part-time at home. We decided that we needed to have our own website so she began to develop one so that we could better help our customers. She looked at possible names for our company and as you can tell by our name www.cutcardstock.com,our focus is on cutting and selling cardstock. We had a lot to learn about having our own business, but we had a dream of reaching out to more customers.
Through the course of events, and the stress my job placed on my self and our family I chose to step down and to look for another job. For those of you that have done this, you probably know what I’m about to tell you. Of all the places I filled out an application and turned in a resume , nobody was looking for a 42 year old man and pay him enough for his family to live on and provide insurance. After several months of what seemed like dead end roads, my wife and I made a crucial decision to take our business full-time. For these last three years we’ve been selling cardstock, envelopes ,blank invitations at our website “Where creativity and affordability merge.” During this period of time our
faith has been challenged almost daily, from having a good business day to wondering if we made the right decision.
In case you are wondering, we no longer are using our dining room table as our shipping table and many other rooms in our home as storage places our business is now located in a 2,300 squarefoot warehouse about 2 miles from our home . We have also been able to upgrade our cutter several times and the one we have now is about
five and a half feet tall and weighs 2,000 pounds. Currently we still use our original scoring machine.
We currently have 5 employees: Darrell, Cindy, Tyler, Ruth, & Dan.
We count it as a privilege to use some of our profits to reach out and to help others. We believe that since God has been faithful to help take care of our family, we in turn should also reach out and help others. Some of those we have been fortunate to help is our local Campus Life YFC Youth for Christ-a ministry that reaches out to the youth in our community. Samaritans Purse- we’ve donated shoe boxes full of goodies to help children in less fortunate places around the world. We’ve been able to help support the building of a children’s home in Burkina Faso (A country near Nigeria) to help house up to 10 children whose parents have died from Aids. We were also able to help send our daughter to volunteer for a week at a JAF (Johnnie and Friends) camp designed to encourage the families of those who have a disabled child.
Our family would like to thank each of you for giving us a chance to be your cardstock company and possibly your friend.
Darrell Crots
