About Ball-Gram Greetings

It all started in 1992, when I was a professional clown. Oh Boy - Was I cute! I wanted to send the birthday child a gift that would arrive before I showed up to perform magic at his/her birthday party. That's when a Ball-Gram Greeting was born, well not the name, but the idea anyway.

I would go to my local K-Mart and buy the children's toy balls that were in those great big cages in the toy section. Then I would take a permanent marker and draw a silly cartoon face and write a funny message on the ball and send it to the birthday child for his/her upcoming birthday. After all, I was going to be the clown at the party and you know what - the kids absolutely loved it!

But all those times, I was putting the ball in a box to mail it. Silly me, huh? It was in 2006 that a friend of mine, Joe, tells me about a ball he received in the mail from a client and I was shocked! It was just like the balls I used to send but it came in the mail without a box - nothing but the ball. I never knew the ball could be sent like that. Another friend, Kay, told me that her daughter received one in the mail also and she was quite upset that her daughter's name and address were printed on the ball with permanent marker. She pointed out that with all of the recent headlines about child abduction, the last thing she wanted was to have her daughter's name and address printed forever on the ball. What if she was playing with it outside and left the ball in the front yard? Then someone would have her daughter's name and address.

So, I thought - there has to be a better way. So I thought and I thought and I thought some more and then it hit me - packaging! I could put the ball in a see-thru net bag and attach a colorful plastic postcard to it. This way, the postcard won't get ruined in bad weather and couldn't be torn off the bag (since it's plastic) and I could have a place to write a funny message that could be sent with the ball. The ball would be free of any messy stamps or sloppy permanent address on the ball.

So, I sat down and drew up custom graphics for different themes and occasions and designed balls that would feature as many as four different colors. Each one designed so that when the person received the ball, they could read their fun message from the person sending them the ball, remove the net bag and the ball was just like brand new and ready to play with. I believe that people will have so much fun sending these very unique balls to their friends and family at work, to their boyfriends and girlfriends and to their children and grandchildren all over the U.S.A.

Just some plain 'ol Super-Duper Fun!

And thus, 15 years later - A Ball-Gram Greeting was born!