This week my brother-in-law was called to duty over in Iraq. As of today he has arrived into Iraq safely and will be there for the next year. We sent over several guitar picks with him including our American Hotties and our Camo Picks. Playing music is such a great past time for the troops over there. Over the years we have supported many efforts to send musical products to the troops, as we appreciate all that they sacrifice for our country.

Our American Hotties are printed on our durable White Delrin Material. Each pick features a gorgeous vintage lady from one of the US branches of military. Sure to enhance anyone’s spirits! Plus they are made purely in the USA!

Our Camo picks are on a special blend of premium celluloid that looks like camouflage. Perfect for any of your army friends or family.

SPECIAL! Now through May 15th, 2009 anyone who has a friend or relative that is currently serving the USA, send us a picture of that person, and your address (U.S. addresses only please) to orders@steveclayton.com. For everyone who sends a picture during this time we will mail you out a free packet of either Camo picks or American Hotties at no charge to you. Please make sure to include the picks in your next care package to them. It is the least we can do for the brave men and women currently serving our country.

A loyal customer e-mailed us today asking about the difference between our Ultem pick and authentic Tortoiseshell picks. What a great question for today’s post. Most of you have probably never played with real tortoiseshell before. This is because it became illigal to produce/import tortoiseshell into the United States in 1947, which was before even I was born! A lot of guitar picks are made to have the appearance of tortoiseshell such as our cork-grip picks. However these are actually made of celluloid. Some people bring me some pretty convincing celluloid and tell me they have a true tortoiseshell pick, when almost always they don’t. Not sure if you have a real one or fake? Quickly rub the pick in-between cloth several times to create mild heat, if the picks starts to smell like camphor or vicks vabor rub, that is a celluloid plastic pick. They smell strong! Cow horn is also often passed off as tortoiseshell. If the pick is made out of cow horn then it will have a milky white appearance in parts of the pick.

People allude to the authentic tortoiseshell as the holy grail of picks… and are sought after. Well I have played many in my life-time and here are my thoughts on them. They sound nice, with a nice tone, but they break and sometimes even explode in your hand which is useless during a performance. Also the edges get rough. In my personal opinion, Ultem creates a much brighter, cleaner sound with better overtones, plus is much more durable. In the end when it comes to authentic tortoiseshell, I recommend saving your money and the turtles.

In case you missed out on our newsletter, we are currently offering a 10% discount custom orders placed through April 30th. Just use the promotional code APRL09 to get 10% when checking out. This week we’ve had quite a variety of different custom picks. Here are few we did this week. We’ve been making the Helmet guitar picks for guitarist Page Hamilton for years now on our Acetal Rounded Triangle 1.52 and he just recently ordered more. The brighter colors that were printed on the pearl really look amazing and stand on out well even though the pick itself is so colorful. If you are looking to have a bright color printed we would suggest getting the pearl as the colors almost always turn out looking amazing on this pick. It really shows that black isn’t the only color that looks good on the pearl . I actually spoke to the customer who ordered the pirate pick and we had a hard time choosing between Acetal or White Delrin. After discussing the differences between the two he chose White Delrin, and I couldn’t agree more with his decision. It turned out stunning! The sketch of the couple is also imprinted on White Delrin.

Since it is Earth day we thought it would be fitting to talk a little bit about our Garage Band guitar picks that we released in January of ’09. Each package contains over 100 mixed guitar picks. This mixed assortment are our picks that didn’t get put back into their correct re-claim bin, or fell onto the floor, where misprinted, etc. These all get collected, all images removed and re-packaged into nice clear boxes. Not only are the picks in the box reclaimed, but the box itself is a reclaimed item that is finding its 2nd use to hold this guitars picks. Hopefully the box will even find a 3rd use as a continuous home for your wayward picks.

If you have a band this is a great pick assortment to have around. Pretty much everyone will find a pick they will love in here. Plus they aren’t the cheap filler picks like you may see other companies sell. These picks are all Acetal, Delrin, Ultem, and Premium Celluloid! At the retail price of $16.98, you really just can’t go wrong with these.

You can purchase our garage band picks at the link below:

Garage Band Picks

Hmm wasn’t St. Pattys day last month? Well it must be spring fever then because we’ve had several Green orders this month! Most of the picks featured are on Green Delrin which is made out of a very durable material and is one of the most popular and widely used materials available. We offer Delrin is 5 other colors such as red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. They are colored according to gauge. The Green Delrin is made on the .88mm gauge which is a slighly heavier medium gauge. The one in the middle is on our Color Pearl which is made out of celluloid. This one was for a wedding, and was colored to match the wedding colors. The really exciting feature about the Color Pearl is that we can color it to match just about any color you choose! And you can choose the gauge as well, so basically it is compeletely customized to suite your needs. Also, believe it or not our White Delrin is in that circle featuring a full green over bleed. If you can’t pick them out it is the Joe Bachman Crew pick and the one with faint white lines next to the Colfax pick. It’s a good example of what we use the “full bleed” feature for. We normally don’t suggest covering the whole pick with a solid background, however, these 2 are great examples of what can be done. A background that has other colors in it with a logo usually turns out great with a full bleed. We would suggest using either the Acetal Polymer or White Delrin picks for full bleeds.

In a prior blog posting we mentioned that we recently have started endorsing James Otto. James and his management team were nice enough to let Patty McGrade (Sales Dept. at Clayton, Inc.) and her daughter Kathy go backstage for a Meet & Greet with James at his concert in Schaumburg, Illinois last night (April 16th). James and his team were so accommodating to them and we all really appreciate their kindness. You can see James’ Clayton picks in the picture at left in his mic stand. James uses the Clayton Acetal 1.00mm. His picks are custom imprinted and have the endorsed eagle on the back. If you didn’t read our prior post about James, please follow the links below to listen to him and find out more information about this amazing country performer.

James Otto Official Website

James Otto’s Myspace

So I decided to pull out my favorite White Delrin picks for the month…and I came up with quite a few. White Delrin is probably my

Custom Guitar Picks

favorite material that we have just because of how well every logo seems to turn out on it. It is a solid bright white guitar pick, so everything really pops on it. As you can see in the White Rose pick, and the VC pick the brighter colors look very nice and pop out on it. I also thought that the B&P photo turned out gorgeous on this material. All the details of the photo came out very crisp and clear. There’s also a wedding pick in the pile somewhere , in the spring/summer months we do several orders for weddings. The most popular saying is something like Stephanie Picked John, or John Picked Stephanie with the date. But I’ve been seeing a lot of unique ones lately with designs surrounding their intials. Congrats to all the newly weds! If your looking for a high quality pick but are also interested in your image really standing out I would suggest getting the white delrin. It will definitely suite these needs.

Currently our Ed Hardy picks are selling like crazy, so I thought I would take a moment today to talk about the pick line.  If you don’t already know about Ed Hardy, once you know you will start seeing it every where, especially on celebrities and musicians.  Their clothing and other items feature colorful classic tattoo designs by Don Ed Hardy.  Clayton, Inc. started making Ed Hardy guitar picks over 3 years ago. When we started the brand wasn’t that strong, but we really saw the potential for it, and since then the brand has really exploded!  Our Ed Hardy picks are printed on our premium pearl celluloid material. The bright pearly white really sets off the colorful Ed Hardy images.  You can check out many of the Ed Hardy items on their website here: Ed Hardy Website.

Don Ed Hardy (pictured left) the artist behind the design is known as “the godfather of modern tattoo”, for his sophistication, depth and sense of experimentstaion. His art is really amazing and I encourage you to take a look at them.  The artwork got turned into a huge success by designer Christian Audigier (pictured right). Christian is the designer of other popular lines such as SMET™ and Von Dutch™. Christian has built a fervent following for his Ed Hardy® and the eponymous Christian Audigier™ brands. Celebrities such as Madonna, Britney Spears, and Kanye West, among others are frequently seen wearing his unique designs.

To find out more info on the guitar picks we offer click here: Ed Hardy Guitar Picks

“For guy’s who get it done. And then some.” – The first catchy phrase off their website and commercials. I’m sure you’ve all seen the hilarious wakeboard challenge but if you haven’t check it out at their website below! We just recently made picks for them on our Promotional Material. This material is perfect for full color imprints with an overbleed such as theirs. Personally, I prefer the more girly flavor of Red Blitz, but their citrus flavor seems to be the most popular.

Vault Wesbite w/ Wakeboard Challenge

This was a really fun order of picks that we are shipping out today to Capitol Federal for several music promotions they are hosting. They are all printed on our white Promo

Material, standard shape, 1.00mm. They each have a very fun modern design in different shades of blue. They are currently running a really neat contest called the “True Blue Luxury Giveaway”. They are giving away tons of

high-end prizes all year long. Next time you are in one of their branches, find an entry box and enter. Good Luck!