Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft. Thank you for watching my tutorial today. I'm going to be showing you how to make this really nice reinforced gift box. Now I have made something similar before and I will link that in up here. It was a Mother's Day box that I've done but this time it has the flap coming over the front and the back so it's just got a kind of a different finish and then I finished it with that huge bow which I think really sets it off. So yeah it's got a slightly different construction as that one but I will link that in as well because you may well like that one too. So this one I am making as part of the social papercraft and magazine which is out today so I will also link that in the description box below. And one of the features that I was asked to do for this issue was to do a Pinterest make. So basically we look at something that we see on Pinterest that we like and then we make it. So I found this box here so you can just see it's got this really nice reinforced with the flap and the bow and that is how I've come up with this one. So there's my inspiration on Pinterest and here is my final one. And then you just open it up and inside you can see there I've also continued this lovely paper which is the first edition Happy Jolly holidays. There it is it's amazing you will see me be using this now all through Christmas along with the hell's couple ditch one as well but this is just gorgeous yeah jolly holiday. So that's that one and then yeah there it is. So it's a really really nice one to make and then that just comes down so it doesn't completely come down to the bottom. You can see it just so you can get both bits of the ribbon and it's just a really nice. This would be perfect for a nice silk scarf, a necklace, some like leather gloves or just normal like knitted gloves. All kinds of Christmassy gifts like I said jewelry and you know even fancy chocolates and stuff like that. It's a really nice six by six size inside so it's a good one. Okay so to make it you are going to need so I've already gone ahead and already done my kind of topper and I'll go through the measurements for that in a bit but I finished it with this also amazing stamp which is by Woodware. I might just grab it behind me here you'll see this being used a lot as well and it's the Woodware Craft Collection Clear Magic Singles. I do have a lot of the Woodware stamps because they're just so nice they're photopolymer and they just stamp beautifully I mean you can see that and it's I wanted big Christmas sentiments this year to put on tags and things like that so I've got Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas and Season's Greetings so yeah really really good and again all of this and all the supplies will be linked on my blog and you'll be able to find that okay so again I'll go through those measurements when we get to that bit along with that but what we do first of all is get straight into the box so there's actually two parts so the box is on its own and then the lid and the base are separate as well so it does become a very very strong gift box so what you want to do is with a piece of 12 by 12 I'm using plain because I'm decorating it with pattern paper on the top but there's no reason why you can't use pattern paper for this so these are 12 by 12 and you just want to score one and a half and three inches on all four sides okay so one and a half and three and again one and a half and three and then lastly one and a half and three okay so then we're going to go ahead and burnish all of those score lines okay so I've burnished all my score lines so now we're going to cut into this just as we would with any reinforced gift box so you always will have four squares in the corners here see the four squares okay so start on any side it doesn't matter but we're going to cut up both of those score lines to the second score line so down past this one and to that one there so you're cutting those kind of four squares so they're just kind of hanging now so I've got two there and two there then I'm just going to rotate it and I'm going to cut the outer ones completely away so those two now will be away like so okay and then this one here just cut off so now we're just left with one one by one square one and a half by one and a half square sorry just in the corner like so okay I'll just hold that there so you know what you're doing all right and again I'll go across to this one and cut down again both of those score lines so down to the second score line again like so turn it to the side and totally remove the outer two and then just remove that one there okay so again if I just turn it back and lie it down that is now what you should have is these two like this you'll have two long sides here and then this one then you're going to rotate the whole thing around so that's now facing away from you and repeat again so I'll show you again in this corner here so you're just cutting up down to that second score line and again the outer ones you're completely removing and then that single one okay and then again on this one here okay so that is now the shape that you should have but when you've done that just go around on all those one and a half by one and a half inch squares and just take wedges off of each side so they look more like that shape okay so I'm just going to do that on all four okay so you can see now I've got these little tabs okay and then what I also like to do is just very very slightly on the outer long ones is just take a little kind of slither off I'm really almost just removing any score line that may be visible because this is going to be folded in on itself it can be quite kind of thick within that corner so just by taking off these little bits we'll just take off any you know kind of bulk that you may have so just like I said it seems you know minimal but it will make a difference and again that one there okay so if I just keep that there for the minute that is where you need to be okay now those of you that do this all the time straight away you won't even be listening to me now you'll just be straight into it but what you want to do is add glue to the tops of these four tabs now you can do them all at the same time if you want I always tend to do them one at a time and you can also use double sided tape here as well but you just want to pop some glue just on the tab there and then you're going to fold that down and bring a side up around and just hold that there for a minute while it all sticks down okay and there we've got a really nice right angle make sure you don't go over you're not pulling it in or anything like that it's got to be a nice sharp right angle and then all your angles will stay nice all the way around and then make folding all of this in a lot easier as well someone's screeching their car outside if you just heard that scared me okay and then again with that one I'm just going to fold it down and bring it around the other side there and just repeat that on all of your corners okay so that is now where you should be so you have all your corners stuck down there I think that one's still a bit wet there we go so now what you want to do is pop it on one of the sides it doesn't matter which one and just put glue all inside where the tabs are there just pop some glue in there and you don't need to go right into the corners or anything like that just enough glue to just hold this down so now you're going to fold in one of the sides okay and then with my bone folder I'm just going to take that in there and just rub that down and just spread out that glue and you can really crease and burnish the side of your box as well okay so you see there you get a really nice side now once my glue dries that will be really really strong as well so then go around and do the next one again just rub the glue inside like so and fold in the next one and just repeat that on all of the four sides okay so now we have a nice strong box now these reinforced boxes are always good if you've maybe not got a very very thick card because if you imagine you're folding them over on each other which is making them thicker so it's a good way for you to make stronger boxes um that way then also we'll make the base strong now because it's also going to be stuck on more card in a minute but this um paper that I'm now going to pop inside this is five and three quarters by five and three quarters so it just gives you a quarter inch border all the way around but that will also add more strength now you could have you know some something personalised there if you wanted so whoever lifts the gift up it then says something it's entirely up to you but I'm just I wanted to use all of that it was a 12 by 12 paper um paper that I've used so I just like to kind of get as much out of it as I can and then the rest I fussy cut so I've actually fussy cut all these crackers out of the leftover ready for another project okay so just move that around so it's nice and straight there we go so that is our box okay really nice so I'm going to leave that to one side now just kind of let that set and then we can move on to our lid and our base so grab your scoreboard okay so first of all we are going to do the base so this is a piece of nine and one-eighth of an inch by six and a half okay and what you want to do is if you've watched my other tutorial where I used the green card here to show you how to basically when you need to kind of make something either go around something or go inside something but you need it to be a really really tight fit you usually need to pull the card out a little bit and by using this green card here which is just a piece of cardstock that I've folded in half pop it into the corner of your scoreboard and then pop your cardstock up to the like butt it up to it then remove the cardstock cardstock and you will see a tiny piece of your scoreboard that's what you want okay so I just usually you've seen me in tutorials before I just pull the card out slightly you can do that if you want but you need to make sure that you're consistent it doesn't really matter too much because we're only doing it once on this piece and then once on the other piece but if you've got that piece that I told you to keep then use that for this so I'm going to pop my green card in there and then pop my cardstock and then I'm going to remove that and you want to score at one and five eighths of an inch okay so one and five eighths like so and then just push that cardstock back in so it's nice and flush and you're going to score at seven and five eighths of an inch okay so just those two there now what that's going to do so if I just fold because this is our base that we're doing so I'm just going to burnish and again that one there so when we get our base now we can sit that inside and that card perfectly wraps around this base okay so there you go once it's stuck down that you get a really nice kind of wrap and that's just because we extended this base here so this width this distance now from here to here is six and one sixteenth of an inch okay so it's that sixteenth inch of a bit I am preparing a tutorial on this because when I asked you lot if you would like me to do an in-depth tutorial about measurements and all that kind of stuff you a lot of you have said you would like to and I've received quite a few emails as well so because this is six by six we need this to wrap around and if you kept that as six it just wouldn't look it would buckle and it would just wouldn't look nice but by just extending it by that one sixteenth that little bit it will just give you that nice wrap there okay so that is going to sit on the bottom make sure got my crackers facing the right way this back piece we are going to stick flush against the back and this piece we're going to keep down for the time being because we're going to conceal our ribbon behind it or whatever it is that you may be using but we will get to that in a second so then you want to grab that other piece okay and this piece here is eight and five eighths of an inch by six and a half and we're going to do exactly the same thing so grab that piece of cardstock pop it inside here in the corner I'm just resting my cardstock in there and then pull that away and you're going to score at one and one of five eighths yep same again so one and five eighths of an inch and then push it back in and score at seven and five eighths of an inch now this one's slightly shorter at the end so that's the difference between the two if you do get them mixed up this one will be shorter and that's because and that's the longer piece is the back that shorter piece is this piece here okay so let me just furnish that nicely like so right get rid of your scoreboard that's everything done there okay so now we can start putting it all together and decorating it now that's shorter piece at the front I like to just round off my edges so I've just got my corner punch here you don't have to really doesn't matter you might want to decorate it with some of the metal corner protectors as well you can do that but there we've got that so this is the bottom make sure whatever it is that you've got facing you this is the back this is going to stick directly down this back piece is then going to stick over the top so we've got like a quadruple enforced a back there because there's four pieces of cardstock all together and then this will go and sit perfectly and this is what I mean about having that really flush once that's all stuck you've got a really flush wrap around that box that will sit over the top like so and that's going to be our lid but we're going to reinforce that obviously as well so first of all I would say put your glue all on your base okay so I'm just going to do that okay and then sit it in and it will sit perfectly from score line to score line but then what you want to do is make sure you've got a quarter of an inch overhang on both sides because this is six by six base this is six and a half wide so you'll have quarter inch this side and a quarter inch that side so just make sure you've got all your corners really stuck down so I'm just using my ruler there just to get right up to all those corners okay so again once that dries but that's a really really strong base there okay so it won't matter at this moment because they're both the same that one is coming over ever so slightly so I am just going to go along and just take a little slither a tiny bit just want to get it flush there you're not going to see this so don't worry if it's a little bit wonky I just want to tidy that up a little bit just so it doesn't interfere just have a look just make sure yeah that's better it's nice and flush okay so which way was my crackers that way so now I need to stick down glue on here don't stick the glue on this piece because it's longer and you're more likely to you know have your glue kind of going over to this bit which is going to be exposed so always stick your glue on the actual box itself because that's all the area that you need to be stuck down okay and then just fold that bit over pop it on its side and again just use your bone folder there just to kind of apply pressure and just get that all nice and stuck down okay so you can see now should be nice and flat nice and flush and again really strong now what you want to do is this one is going to stick over the top at the back so that shorter piece will be here at the front okay so what you can do with this piece is you can put blue on all of that because it is going to stick to the back okay so pop it on and just line up your score line so it's nice and flush and then put the back down you can obviously that's why I like using the wet glue because you do have that little wiggle room and again pop it on its side you can just make sure that's all nice and straight okay so now that is everything stuck down I'm going to bring around the front there that is completely flush and once we've got our lid on as well that will all lie nice okay so yeah really I think straightforward to make so I'm going to add this on now because it just makes it sit better so this piece here the white piece because remember this inside is six by six but this is longer it's still six inches that way so these aren't exact squares so the white piece is six and a quarter by five and three quarters and then the pattern paper on top is six by five and a half okay and then that just sits on and it has the same frame there that it does on the white as it does on the pink so I'm just going to stick that down and like I said that sentiment was the woodware one and I've just used some of my rectangle stitched frame dice to decorate that was really hard for me I was really concentrating on the glue you know what I'm trying to say okay just get that all nice and stuck down okay so see what I mean now that just drops down because it's got the weight so you may want to do one of those big bows on top that would look really good actually I'll link that up here the big bows if you're new to the channel then you'll want to maybe check this out otherwise you guys you know what I'm talking about but that can you imagine on top would look really really cool okay so that's that done then it's just the ribbon now now you may want to add magnets so you would put your magnet here you'd have to put them pattern paper over the top and then again a magnet and then conceal it but that would work really nicely there as well but because it's a Christmas gift my husband does pry and everything I'm making now is for family and for my husband they're all going to be you know gift wrapping you know boxes and bags for the gifts that I'm going to be giving to people so you know whether my husband will have this one because it's pink but he most probably have this one here or someone will um what you can do and what I tend to do and I say this and some people are like no no no no I will actually put salatate under here so that is stuck down so even if someone undoes the ribbon they're going to have to rip it and then people would know that they've gone into it earlier um I don't expect these to be kept it's the whole point for me at Christmas as you rip your presents and you get into it and you have fun so yes I'm not precious as you can probably tell I love doing this but um do I expect it to all be kept no mini albums and things like that are different but when it comes to wrapping and gift boxes that's what it's for so anyway I've gone on there right so I'm using a hole punch so I'm just going to pop this on here let me just yeah so you just want to as centered as possible so this will be at three and what did we say this was this was six and a six and a half so three and a quarter is where you want to be popping your Velcro or like I said hole punch magnets whatever it is so I'm just eyeballing this there we go um then what I also done is I die cut a little circle here and I'm just going to pop the same hole just in the middle with the hole punch there and then that will just decorate it now you can use your um metal eyelets or grommets but I just liked this I just thought it's another nice way to show you how you can decorate even your kind of hole punched holes if you don't have you know things like this then that's another way to do it so you could just pop one of these on if you wanted to just to give it a little something okay so I'm going to just get that stuck around there okay so that's all stuck down now I also forgot to mention because this is going to be stuck once we've popped our ribbon in there so that will all be concealed we need to conceal the ribbon on the back of this piece you just need a strip here and this is three quarters of an inch by six and a quarter okay and that will sit inside like so now I just need to round off my corners again there just so it all matches up if you see now that's going to just go inside nice and neatly and it will just conceal that ribbon so now we can do that bit next so I'm going to do the bottom first so you need to make another hole punch and this one here see I this is when I use this screw punch so because I come down further then my hole punch will allow me so again you want to be at three and a quarter so in the middle and I'm coming down to let me do it and then I'll tell you so this is one inch bang on okay so just come down one inch because basically when that flap comes over can you see there you want the ribbon to be able to come out and then go around all right so if you don't have this just grab a little pin thing here and pop that on and use your poke tool and go through and do it that way because you're using ribbon you're not really going to see whether it was a hole punch hole or not so you know I wouldn't worry too much and then like I said you could also pop one of them on there as well and that will tidy it up okay so I've got my ribbon this is really thick two inch ribbon this was on a 12 meter roll from the range and I got it last year but I'm sure they will still have more in there it's such a bargain it was a pound as well it's amazing and it's really nice fabric so I'm going to be having 16 inches so you'll need two lots but it depends what you want how big your bow is and everything else so that's just what I'm using so I'm just going to squeeze the ends pop it in just kind of help it through because I don't want to rip my hole once it's in place it's fine like so and then pull it back out until you just got a little bit sticking out really small amount like half half an inch okay see what I've got there and then just going to grab my hot glue okay and then I'm just going to run a bit of hot glue around the top there I still haven't got any clear glue sticks yet but it doesn't matter you're not going to see any of this and then I'm just going to stick try not to get it on my fingers but you want that ribbon to be as flat as possible you want it really really flat so I'm just really pushing it into that glue the glue gun wasn't completely heated up so it wasn't actually it was warm enough to be obviously used but not to burn me don't worry I haven't got asbestos fingers okay just cut off any loose bits there like so and then I'm just going to use my normal wet glue make sure that's all lying nice there and pop my glue all on this piece because obviously again you know that that's the area that needs to be stuck like so and then I'm just going to put some hot glue again just on that fabric because hot glue is really good to stick and then just focus on that bit first with that bulk here and just really push it down and then just make sure the rest of that's all nice and stuck down okay so now when I bring that up there's the ribbon all nicely concealed and you see what I mean you wouldn't know if you'd used this or not you can't tell because the ribbon is so thick so now I'm going to do this one and do exactly the same thing so again grab my ribbon you want to go in from the front and just again that will protect it that little white circle that I put on so it went through really easily again just make sure you've got about half an inch just kind of underneath there probably even a little bit less because it's a thinner you just want enough just to stick it in there so I'm just going to pop some of my hot glue on the bottom just stick it down making sure it doesn't go over that score line okay you can see there what I've done so it's just stuck within that area there okay and then again what you want to do now is with that piece there so just want to make sure I get all those little loose hairy bits there so I'm going to add some glue to this like so I'm going to add some hot glue again on that fabric and then just get that stuck over the top there okay so that's that all stuck down I don't know why that's just appeared let's pop that over there and then you just need to tie up so that's it done so I mean that looks like quite a lot but once that bows all tied up then I'll tidy off the ends and stuff but that is how you make the box so I'm just going to get my bow done so there you have it really really cute I love the bows on these I love big ribbon bows they are a bit of a bugger to tie but once you kind of fiddle around with them a bit and stuff they look lovely and yeah really like it love the papers love that beautiful big sentiment there and it's just a really nice reinforced box that's definitely going to get used so I hope you like this hope you check out the social papercraft magazine which again will be linked below there's going to be lots of Christmas inspiration in this issue so do go and check it out and I will be back again soon with another tutorial thanks for watching bye


Welcome folks to the 3PM news update. We're a little bit off right now, NDX down 0.36, the Q's also down about the same. Gold is up today, interesting with the dollar up a little bit as well, the gold contract still at 1970, at least, yeah, we're up for a little bit right now, we got it here, all right. Carnival selling off quite a bit after that intense run, it just seems like the market's a little bit tired right now, especially after that pretty substantial run we had over the past month. ES trading about 4,461 right now, down about 10 points, the YM down 0.19, NQ down 0.45, the Russell down a whole percent, that's been kind of jumping around quite a bit. We got some big winners today, it's still going up, the CEO has been taking a lot of his stock picks off right now, a little bit as we go in to the show, the video versus AMD, but take a look at AMD right now, they are down, okay, and it seems like for the short term, the way a lot of people are looking at it, that Nvidia is just the winner currently, and they have a lot, they have a better capability of making better profit in the short term, however, AMD did release the Ryzen and their MI3000 processor, which will go into production and will be used by the US military, on a long term, this still has, you know, this still is a positive pick I think right now. The way I see it, and I'm not, I'll think about it a little bit, I still kind of personally, this is a high price point for me, but this, anything in these kind of chip sectors is going to have a pretty positive upside, you're looking at Microsoft and they said they're going to experience about a 10 billion increase in profit due to AI, and that just enjoyed such a positive day as well, let's see it, well positive week at least. On the daily we're moving down, it just seems the whole market is kind of a little bit exhausted, but I think we'll see next week Microsoft pick up quite a bit with that news, especially dealing with China, folks, stay tuned, we'll be right back, we've got a great hour for you, and we'll have some good times, stay tuned.


Hi, this is Jack Lipton and Critical Materials Corner, and today I'm going to speak with Ed Richardson, the president of Thomas & Skinner, a company that's been making rare earth permanent magnets in the past, and permanent magnets in general for over a century. Ed, can you tell us something about Thomas & Skinner, a brief history of your company? Sure. Well, thanks for having me on, Jack. It's great to talk to you, as always. Thomas & Skinner has been around since 1901. We were started by a professor at Purdue University around the turn of the century, around 1901. If you think about it, electricity was becoming available, but there weren't a lot of devices that could use electricity. So the research and development that was happening at the universities was around magnetic materials. Magnetic materials are often the bridge between electricity as a power source and whatever work you're trying to do. So the professor came up with some different materials, started manufacturing them, and created a magnet company. Over the years, we have evolved into making different types of magnetic materials. We make the permanent magnet alnico, but we've also made rare earth magnets as you alluded to. We've made Sumerian cobalt. We've made NEO. So we've seen a little bit of everything during the 120 years. When your company first made rare earth permanent magnets? Yeah. So in the late 80s, there were a lot of companies that jumped into space in the rare earth space, so making Sumerian cobalt, so making the center of NEO, Demi, and Sumitomo had developed, was one of the companies that developed center NEO, but they weren't enforcing their patents, and then after a while they came around and said, hey, if you're going to do this, you got to pay us. And so most companies jumped out. There were others that did get a license from Sumitomo, but over the course of time, then in North America at least, those companies went out of business. Now, when did you stop making rare earth permanent magnets at Thomas and Skinner? Well, probably around 1992, 1993. And why was that? Well, we wanted to focus on alnico, NEO. We didn't want to buy a license, and it was becoming very competitive. The Chinese were coming in. They had all of the raw materials, so it was becoming very competitive. And we just decided to step away from that, focus on things that we thought we could be more successful at. Now, I know the answer to my next question, but I want you to tell me. Why aren't, or is Thomas and Skinner looking to get back into the production of rare earth permanent magnets, with all of the emphasis now coming from the US federal government? You know, we have talked about it. The challenge, though, is with the patents. I talked about Sumitomo and the patents that they had filed. Similar to a pharmaceutical company, they filed a whole portfolio of patents. And there are hundreds, literally hundreds of patents on making Senator Neo Demi Maier Boron. And they are not, well, Sumitomo eventually sold their business to Hitachi Metals. So Hitachi now owns the Sumitomo patent portfolio. And Hitachi has chosen not to license anyone to make Senator Neo in North America. So if you were one of those original license holders, you still have that license. But in terms of when Hitachi has taken over, they're not licensing anyone new. So if we wanted to get back into it, we would need to get a license to produce from Hitachi. We had asked them for that, and they've declined. Just for your information, and I'm sure you know this, Hitachi Metals has been sold to the, and the purchaser is the Bain Corporation, the American company. And they've told me that they won't be able to close on that deal until sometime next year. And until then, they can't possibly be involved in any sub-licensing from the Hitachi Magnetic Subdivision and Hitachi Metals. So even if you wanted to and had all kinds of money, nothing would be happening next year. So which leads me to the real important question here, Ed. Do you think that there's going to be an American wearer of permanent magnet industry capable of supplying the needs of the North American market anytime soon or ever? No, no. First off, the Chinese aren't going away. So even if you were to get a license from Hitachi to produce, the Chinese are still formidable competitors. They own a huge advantage in terms of raw materials, labor costs, they're getting money from their government. So there's all kinds of reasons why the Chinese are still competitive in this space. And quite frankly, there are just some areas that most companies like us don't even want to go after. For instance, automotive. There's a lot of chatter about automotive, a lot of chatter about wind turbines. But I don't really see that as markets that are even open to a North American producer. Companies that buy magnets for those industries are looking for the lowest global price. And US producers will never be the lowest global price for producing center Neo. I've spoken to Europeans in this space as recently as this morning. And they think they're going to make wearer of permanent magnets there for their automotive industry. I find that hard to believe. I know they may want to do that. But again, how are they going to compete with automobile manufacturers that are getting their raw materials or magnets from China? Without companies, they can't. That's true. And I have to say that I pretty much agree with all of your conclusions. And you and I also know that people who actually know what they're talking about are shunned by those in elected office. So we just keep talking. I recall that you and I testified before a congressional committee years ago about this topic magnets. And that afterwards, our host told me that I was banned forever from justifying before Congress because I kept telling the truth, which is not what they wanted to hear. In any case, you have, you told me on a visit I made your plant about five years ago that you would not, you could build a Neo demium iron boron centered magnet plant again reconstruct the one you had. If I could guarantee you a supply of raw materials and metals now as a competitive prices and guaranteed you a customer who would allow you to sell at a profit. And so that sounds like a pretty straightforward answer to going into any business. And so you are currently a supplier to the defense department of magnets. Yes. And those are those are sourced from those are supposed to be sourced in the United States. Correct.  It's clear that no really the United States is manufacturing Neo demium iron boron magnets yet and yet and we know that maybe 90 plus of such magnets are manufactured in China. Yet the people at a large defense manufacturing operation in Texas who make fighter planes tell me that well, we get our magnets from Japan and Israel. I've been told that the Israelis buy their magnets from Japan which buys their magnets from China and they they I don't know if this is a good term to use in case of Israel they baptize them as non Chinese. Now, isn't it isn't it sort of obvious that the defense department knows all these games and tricks? Yes. And they may be trying to be willfully ignorant. But, you know, there's a lot of key terms that that you have to nail down. Number one, you have to define what is produce mean. When we worked on the specialty metals clause, we narrowed the definition of produce down to meaning that you can melt the alloy. Right. If you can melt the alloy you are producing a metal. If you are melting center neo demium iron boron or at least the alloy for making that that is a rather involved process. And then you've got to turn that into a powder that you can that you can press. I can tell you that Israel does not have a magnet company within its borders. Japan does have the capability of making producing center neo demium iron boron and yet they get all their raw materials from China they are they are dependent on other companies or countries I should say. And they are they're tied very closely to China. And I can also tell you that Japan that the companies in Japan that produce center neo demium iron boron have been shifting their production more and more to China. And they have JVs with China they've been transferring technology and they've been transferring manufacturing plants in exchange for access to raw materials from China. So the amount that is actually produced in Japan is decreasing their reliance on China is increasing and I think it's a willful naivete to think that that Japan is somehow independent of China or that production in Japan is somehow not tainted by Chinese production. Japan is very, very dependent on China. And if you're if you're getting magnets from Japan those materials are coming from China. Those raw materials are coming from China. No, I think I I understand that completely. So the you're aware that the defense department is talking about they want the final aspect of any part they they need produced in the United States like they want they want they say they want rare permanent magnet motors assembled in the United States they want rare permanent magnets assembled into the components United States. Is there any I'm not aware of anybody in the United States currently that's manufacturing neo demium iron boron magnets and and I'm only aware of I believe your not really your competitor but electron energy in Pennsylvania which is making somerium cobalt magnets but I understand that they are currently but they buy their somerium from China obviously and so I don't see how they can say that they're independent either. They are they are making their own alloys though they are melting their own alloys and that's a key key step that they do have and so that does make them somewhat independent they also my understanding is they buy a lot of inventory and hold it to create a buffer. Somerium is one of those elements that's not in short supply it's actually an oversupply supply. So you don't hear much about somerium because there's a lot of it more than we typically use at least in magnet production. Are you aware of the fact that the largest Chinese magnet company has announced it's doubling its production of rare permanent magnets in the next two or three years? Yeah the expansion of capacity for making magnets has been going on for I would say the last 10 years in China they see it as a key industry for them in their future and so they have incentivized companies to invest and they have built a tremendous amount of capacity and continue to do so. My opinion and you can correct me if I'm wrong is that they're doing that because they see their domestic demand it's going up very high for cars domestic reproduction of energy you know by alternate means etc and so I don't think that they're doing this to promote an export market I think they're doing it to to ensure that their domestic consumption needs can be met. Absolutely absolutely but I think you could also say it sends a message to anyone who's thinking about getting into production that China is a willing and very aggressive investor in capacity and so any investment in capacity outside of China is going to be met with a lot of low price production but you're exactly right China is investing to to consume it themselves they are ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the use of electrical devices for instance electric bikes are much more common in China than they are here they're much more developed in their use and they're they're everywhere in China where they're just starting to be seen here in the United States and in Western developed countries and I and I think because of their advantages I think they are very eager to use electric motors in in devices so their trains are electric their bikes are electric I think they are very very anxious to create the electric automobile industry and they not only have demand but they have a pollution problem so they have consumers that want automobiles and they have a pollution problem that they want to get rid of so moving to electric vehicles would be very beneficial to them I so I think they're they're they're building to meet that that future demand one last question it it turns out the Chinese lately have been importing a lot of rare earth raw materials up to 40 of their needs and this is quite a dramatic change over the last decade or so do you think there's any chance that the Chinese will run short of raw materials no I think it's a very shrewd move by themselves to to get supplies from other countries number one it keeps other people from getting into the the production of of products using those raw materials but also it keeps them from using up all of theirs I don't think they're have a are facing a danger of running out they have a vast supply in the bowtow region but why use up all that you have when you can easily get what the rest of the world has and use theirs first Ed you must be right because I'm of the same opinion and great minds think alike listen I want to thank you very much for this conversation and we're going to keep in touch as the US rare earth permanent magnets industry progresses or doesn't so thank you very much thanks a lot appreciate your time thank you jack


In this presentation, we're going to make a customized pledge form, which is basically a customized invoice. Get ready, because here we go with zero. Here we are in our not for profit dashboard. We're going to look at the customization of an invoice. So notice the invoice is going to be in essence a pledge form. So if someone promises to pay us doesn't give us an actual pledge but promises to pay us, we're going to call that a pledge rather than an invoice. So in essence, we're going to go in there and take our invoice form and rename it to a pledge type of form. You can also take a look at the customization of the invoice for other purposes as well. Just also remember that as we think of the pledge type of form, it's a little bit different than a for profit type of organization. Because usually when we issue an invoice, that means that someone's going to owe us money for something that we did. Goods or services have transacted and therefore there's kind of like an obligation for some type of payment. Pledge is going to be a little bit different. It's just a promise to pay. We haven't given them anything. We might have given them a pen or something like that because we're the not for profit. It's a pledge, a donation for a donation in the future. So we have a little less leeway or enforceability of course, because there's not actually a transaction that took place just basically a promise that's in place. So we want to have our form to kind of reflect that. So if we select the dropdown up top, the not for profit organization, and we go down, we want to go down to the settings. Here's where you could customize your invoice settings. We're going to go down to the settings. We're going to go to the right-hand side where it says invoice settings. So we're going to adjust the invoice. That's going to be the form that we will now be using for in essence, our pledge form. Now you have a lot of customization options. I'm not going to go through all the customization options, but you could make your invoices more customized. Of course, you got the logo over here. You've got the new brand theme, the default settings, the payment services and the invoice reminders. We're going to go to the dropdown here and I'm going to take a look at the standard items. So you got the custom, which is a doc or word document. I'm going to go into the standard settings. So within the standard settings, we have a lot of options here. What I'm looking for is just really to change the name here. So we have the approved invoice title. So I'm going to say the title. Let's make the title a pledge instead of an invoice. I'm going to do that here for the overdue as well. I'm going to say pledge and then statement draft purchase order. I'll keep that draft quote, quote, uh, remittance advice and the receipt. I might say donation receipts. Let's say donation receipt and let's see what this does. Let's keep it at that. So I'm going to then say save. Let's go ahead and save that information. And it won't let me save it because I didn't put a name here. So I'm going to put the name. I'm just going to call this a pledge. This is the pledge name. And then I'm going to go back down and see if we can then save it this time. Let's go ahead and save it again. So then once we make an invoice, if I go down, if I go up to the plus button, we're not actually going to record an invoice at this point in time. But let's just take a look. It's still going to be called an invoice form here. But within the invoice form, and this is going to be for someone pledging or promising to give us money. We have the branding item and for the branding item, we can then select the dropdown and we can go to the pledge, the pledge branding, which will have our adjustments on it. So we'll take a look at creating the pledge in a future presentation. So that's going to be it for now, but let's go back up top and just I'm going to go out of here. I'm not going to record any invoice at this point in time. And again, we will go back in and record an invoice or pledge in a future presentation. That's it for now. Let's get out of here.


What's up, everybody? Ricky Kruth here. Welcome back to my channel. Good to see you. Hope you're doing super well Hope you're finding a lot of value here on my YouTube channel I'm putting a lot of work in trying to bring you the best content that I possibly can and it's all coming from the heart Today I want to talk about three things you can start doing on Zillow to start getting free leads. I Want you to know that this is my life This is real Relationships are universal Now everybody knows you can pay Zillow a ton of money to get a bunch of leads But nobody's really talking about the things that you can do for free to utilize Zillow to build your business Now I'm not talking about you should build your business on Zillow for free or that's something that's going to take your business to another level No, I'm just going to give you some tips today that can help put you in position To get leads here and there and to really kind of build your brand because here's the facts Zillow is one of the largest traffic and websites in the industry Okay, more people go to Zillow right more buyers and sellers go to Zillow than probably any other website in the industry So they have a lot of eyeballs of your customers And I just want you to be in the best position possible with those eyeballs The first thing you need to do is hit the like button because this is going to be another Incredible video that's going to help you tremendously, but seriously the first thing you need to do is you need to go to Zillow and go to your profile Okay, you can have a Zillow profile as a real estate agent for absolutely free Okay, this is something that if you don't have a profile on Zillow, you need to create a profile on Zillow This is something that I wasn't doing for so many years Okay, only maybe two years ago. I actually dressed up my profile and I started getting Zillow reviews Okay, so but up to that point. I had nothing on there. All right So I just decided that you know, I don't get Zillow leads and I wasn't really worried about Zillow And I just kind of ignored Zillow and that's all fine and dandy However, people are looking at Zillow and you should have your profile up to date Make sure you have a really good picture. Okay, and when you're writing the description of your bio or whatever it's called on Zillow Make sure that it's more about the customer than about you Okay, make sure that it's not about you you you this is everything I did This is what I sold and this and that and the other Make sure that it's more about the customer and that you're there for them and the things that you want to provide Them and bring them value so we want to get all that in place You can also embed videos so if you have some kind of Introductory video or or some kind of commercial or something that you have that you want your clients to see as a kind of you Know who is Ricky Caruth or something like that? Put it there. All right That's the you know video is is you know moving up the ladder as the king They say it all the time so this is a good opportunity to put a video in there as well To attract some more possible customers another thing you can do to dress your profile up It start to add all your clothes sales and your listings and make sure that you know all that information is accurate that you have all your Closed sales from all your your past closings on there, right? That's going to show that you know You're in the game and you're selling properties and that's going to show credibility for you to those people that are coming and looking at Your profile make sure your listings are right and accurate and everything is there Okay, so now we have our profile looking really sharp. Okay. I've got a really good picture All right, our bio is is telling them, you know a little bit about us and that we're here for them Maybe embed some video. Okay, we got all our listings there We have all our past sales there and our closings and we're just shaping this thing up Okay, so people are going to visit your profile.  Okay, I get calls from Clients that say they found me on Zillow and I don't pay Zillow a dime It's just from having a really good Profile on Zillow and a really good presence there another thing I get are free leads I'll get a lead every once in a while from Zillow for free And I don't know if that's Zillow just teasing me now Like here's the lead pay us and we'll give you more leads or what the case may be the leads that I get the free leads Seem to always be for my listing So I think it's literally people that are going to my profile or maybe they find one of my listings somewhere and they Scroll down and they see that I have it listed and they want to contact the listing agent Maybe some of these people are really savvy They know that the premier agents that are right there up front are not necessarily the listing agents and they scroll down They find me and they messes me directly through Zillow not quite sure but I do get free leads from Zillow in my inbox So that's something that's just a kind of a bonus as well. It's not a ton of leads, but it is every once in a while Let's just say one every couple months, which is not a lot But it is a lead here and there that could turn into something all the stuff's gonna add up over time The next thing you need to do is you need to start sending Zillow review Requests to your clients after every closing right and there's a couple little tricks there Sometimes people they break out their phone and they they do it right there at the closing table and say hey Can you give me a review real quick at the closing table, right? I haven't been the best at getting Zillow reviews I do have quite a bit. I could have more if I push the issue a little more, but You should Definitely go after the Zillow reviews the more those Zillow reviews the better your profile is gonna look and the more credibility You're gonna have now one thing that I don't want you to do is to get upset if you get a negative Zillow review Okay, I've had some negative Zillow reviews I think I have one negative Zillow review and that was from like 2010 I didn't even start to dress up my Zillow profile till maybe 2017 So I didn't I had no idea than this negative review was on my profile And so when I looked in 2017 one decided, okay, I want to try to dress up my profile There were only two reviews one was a five-star review. They loved me to death and the other one was a negative review So but that's okay. Okay. What I want you to keep in mind is that negative reviews make you look human if you have 18 positive reviews and one negative review. Okay, that's good All right, it makes you look human. It makes you look like it's not fake if all you had was just positive Reviews then that could turn into a situation where you know They don't know if they really believe that this person is that great. Who is that great? Who is that perfect? Okay, so sometimes the negative reviews make you look human and can actually work out positively for you So don't sweat the negative reviews keep doing what you're supposed to be doing to help people And and work hard and be honest and I think at the end of the day, you're not gonna make everybody happy Okay, so just know that do your best and let's go So up to this point.  Okay, we're gonna have to do on a consistent basis We're gonna have to check the closed sales and make sure each closed sales going in there We're gonna make sure our listings are going good We're gonna get reviews from our clients every time we close a property Those are things that we have to do on a consistent basis to keep our profile You know and a really good spot and continue growing, you know our presence on Zillow We're gonna get people that check us out. They're gonna see our profile. They're gonna call us we're gonna get a couple free leads here and there from Zillow because of our listings and We're just gonna have overall just like I said good credibility in the market and the last way that you can utilize Zillow to get free leads and to capitalize get listings get sales is to call The make me move or the for sale by owners that are trying to advertise on Zillow Call those people right see what's going on with them see if they've had a lot of activity work them as a for sale By owner there's a video below of me calling for sale by owners live with my entire strategy there But what I want to do is I want to get in there and I want to let them tell me about the house Meet up face-to-face if I can I want to find out why they are selling right and where they're moving to I want to get all the back story and see what their plans are and see what I can do to help them accomplish those goals if I can Help them sell the property that they have for free just by giving them good advice. This is what I would do This is what I wouldn't do and they sell that property You may create a relationship in which you will represent them when they buy their next property Okay, so there's a lot going on there Also, if you give them really good advice and they don't sell it and they throw in the towel and want to hire an agent Who are they going to let listed you because you were there not going after the deal, but just trying to help them Okay, so, you know, that's a that's a you know debatable issue on how to handle for sale by owners But for sale by owners are on Zillow and we can utilize Zillow to locate them get their phone number call them and Create those relationships create that business add to our database and just put herself in a really good position So just to recap what we want to do is we want to create a really powerful profile Okay, want to get really good bio really good picture embed some video Want to get our closings on there our listings want to start asking for reviews and want to build those reviews up on Zillow Okay, then we want to utilize the for sale by owners in our market that are advertising on Zillow Okay, and all of that put together should put you in a pretty good spot to capitalize on some business So I hope this video helped you a lot I hope you take the actions that I talked about in this video and it helps you build your business and take Yourself to the next level if there's anything in the world I can do for you or if there's a video that you want me to make Please comment below and let me know what that is and I'll be glad to do it hit me up on Instagram I'm still answering every single DM. I'm not sure how but I'm still making that happen So if there's anything you need at Ricky Kruth on Instagram is the best place to find me and until the next video Let's go