Abbey Press celebrates its golden anniversary in 2014. The anniversary theme, “50 years of faith, family & friendship,” speaks to the company’s origins.

As a successful commercial printing company, Abbey Press took small steps into the catalog business in the early 1960s. Brother Maurus Zoeller, OSB, who served as printing manager at the time, was looking for a new way to share the Word of God with friends and family. He discovered it in the form of holy cards and note cards, which he sold through a small brochure he developed and distributed. In 1964, the first “dealer wholesale” catalog was mailed, featuring the cards, as well as a collection of scrolls, prints and plaques.

Art & SoulWorks has announced the upcoming launch of licensed products related to Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s epic History Channel miniseries, The Bible. 

Themed bookmarks and pocket cards will begin shipping shortly, a display will be ready in early December, and posters will be available in January. Retail prices range from $1.95 to $9.95.

The miniseries has been seen by more than 100 million viewers, and Burnett and Downey’s Son of God movie also will be in theaters Feb. 28.

Gift cards have been touted as the one-size-fits-all gift idea for years, and this holiday season, shoppers will spend record amounts on them. According to NRF’s Gift Card Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, holiday shoppers will spend an average of $163.16 on gift cards, 4% above the $156.86 they spent last year and the highest amount in the survey’s 11-year history.

This season, four out of every five shoppers (80.6%) will look to add gift cards to their baskets, according to the survey. Total spending on gift cards is expected to reach $29.8 billion.

Christian apparel, jewelry and gifts supplier Kerusso has unveiled two new Cherished Girl designs for early release. The tees feature bright colors and designs.

Kerusso introduced Cherished Girl last year, and the company says it has become very successful in stores.

The Parable Group announced the winning store of its Attend-a-Distribution-Trip-with-Operation-Christmas-Child contest. The winning store, Sounds of Light in Adrian, Mich., owned by Mary and Louis Schaap, will receive an all-expenses-paid, five-day trip to Barranquilla, Colombia, for two to distribute shoeboxes with Operation Christmas Child.

Applicant stores submitted photos and earned virtual tokens for their local OCC campaign. Virtual tokens could be earned for a variety of efforts, such as creating in-store displays, contacting churches, partnering with OCC area coordinators, ordering Hygiene-in-a-Bottle kits from Oodles World, posting on social media and hosting a shoebox-packing party. Sounds of Light was drawn Oct. 28 from a pool of more than 3,000 tokens.

Kevin Sumner, founder and CEO of California-based 1 Eighty Apparel has joined forces with Washington Redskins starting offensive tackle Tyler Polumbus to create a new company and Christian active wear line called CLAIMED.

The two connected via social media, and Polumbus called Sumner to discuss his idea for a T-shirt line. Instead, the two took a different direction. Sumner was already researching the $1.5 billion fitness industry and praying about how to implement an active wear line. As a result, there was “instant synergy,” Sumner said, and the CLAIMED partnership was formed.

P. Graham Dunn’s factory retail store has experienced significant growth in sales, despite a down economy. The Dalton, Ohio-based gift supplier seems to have found the key to increasing traffic and profits for its on-campus store, which was up 30% for 2012 and about 15% this year as of October.

Located in a unique situation as the 22,000-square-foot retail store next to the P. Graham Dunn factory and about a half-hour from towns in the area, the store is truly a destination, Retail Operations Manager Todd Krist said.