June 5, 2009 at 1:59 am (family, gifts, shopping, zazzle)
Tags: coupon, coupon code, dad, father, fathers day, gift, occassion, shop, shopping, special offer, tie, zazzle
Fathers Day Special offer for today only, enter coupon code FATHERDAYTIE during checkout to receive a discount of $7 against any tie purchase.
**$7.00 discount applies to each qualifying Zazzle tie product. The coupon code FATHERDAYTIE must be entered during checkout to receive the offer. Offer is valid from June 5, 2009 through June 5, 2009 at 11:59pm PT. Your order must be placed during that time to qualify for this special promotional pricing offer. This promotional offer may not be combined with any other Zazzle promotional or discount offers.
There’s a vast number of ties to choose from, at least from Zazzle you’ll know it won’t be the same old tie that everyone else has from the department store!
Click here to browse Zazzle for great Fathers Day gifts 
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June 3, 2009 at 2:49 pm (Art, Digital Art, Fantasy Art, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: AngelMist Gallery, Art, cards, Digital Art, Fantasy Art, fractals, gifts, original, print on demand, prints, t-shirts, tees, tshirts, zazzle
WindSong is an enchanting beauty. She is the voice we hear whispering through the leaves. She is the breath we feel on our faces. She blows hot and cold in rage and in calm, but she is always with us night and day.
This artwork is a digital painting incorporating digital 3D modelling, fractals and watercolour techniques, collaged together to create the final piece. Altogether she has taken me somewhere in the region of 24 working hours to build from scratch and complete. I’ve tried to create a feeling of movement surrounding her. I’ve printed my own giclee proof copy, and I have to say she prints beautifully!
In the AngelMist Gallery she is available from portfolio (11″x15″) right through to the huge size 35″x47″, plus on other selected products such as cards, mousemats, keychains and a specially adapted “wearable art” version for tshirts too!
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May 31, 2009 at 9:12 am (Store Reviews, family, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: cards, clothing, families, family, family members, gifts, original designs, print on demand, prints, Quality Design Directory, shopping, stores, t-shirts, zazzle
This weeks Zazzle store review, an insight into the wonderful designs and products available at the “Featured Store” of the week from the Quality Design Directory.
This is a store that is exactly what it says it is! With it’s designs for each and every member of the family, from baby to Grandma, from Sister to Brother, there’s something here for everyone. Each design is featured on a good range of products so there’s something to suit all budgets for all occassions, and each design comes packed with a great big splash of humor.
The layout of the store is very organised which makes it easy to browse and find exactly what you’re looking for. Just browse the “Product Lines” menu on the right, or the section header graphics at the top of the page if you have someone specific in mind. The featured items on the home page give you an instant idea of the fun that’s inside. The designs themselves are created to an excellent standard.
The main reason I chose to review this store this week is because the designs actually made me laugh! I see so many tshirts that do make me laugh, but are perhaps a bit OTT in the offensive department to give to Grandpa, a bit too close to the mark to give to Dad without getting a “clip round the ear” (even if you are 37 years old!); no these designs remain totally family friendly but are bang on target with the humor. For anyone that has small children in the family, the “Sassy Sayings” section is the place to visit. Below a a few examples of some of my favourites in the section:
Coosing an overall favourite from the store was a real nightmare, there’s just so many that I liked for various reasons, but in the end I decided on two to keep it equal…
This one for Mom:
….And This for Dad:
Family Humor Shirts supplies tshirts, hats, aprons, bags, posters/prints (custom framing available), postcards, greetings cards, mugs, mousepads, stickers, buttons, magnets and keychains.
Family Humor Shirts Browse UK store
Family Humor Shirts Browse US store
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May 24, 2009 at 6:43 pm (Art, Digital Art, Fantasy Art, family, gifts, shopping, zazzle)
Tags: AngelMist Gallery, Art, cards, Digital Art, Fantasy Art, fractals, gifts, original, print on demand, prints, shopping, zazzle
Night Faerie is a digital painting created from fractals and 3D models and painted with digital watercolour techniques. A dark fantasy scene dominated by the beautiful faerie in her black and crimson gown, gazing playfully at the weightless fractal bubble resting in the palm of her hand. Is she holding our dreams?…Pure magic! Posters, prints and canvases available from small sizes through to a colossal size of 52″x69″. Plus your own choice of custom framing and mat options too. The artwork is also available on selected cards and gift items.
Stop by the AngelMist Gallery and take a peek at the original artwork that’s on offer.
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May 22, 2009 at 1:22 pm (Photography, Store Reviews, UK, england, gifts, shopping, zazzle)
Tags: Britain, cards, Durham, england, English, gifts, original, photographic, Photography, photos, pictures, prints, Quality Design Directory, shopping, UK, zazzle
This is the first in a series of zazzle store reviews. Each review will will be an insight into the wonderful designs and products available at the “Featured Store” of the week from the Quality Design Directory.
There’s more to this gallery than first meets the eye! It contains a wonderful collection of high quality photographic images taken in and around the north east of England. The homepage of the gallery features 12 stunning images ranging from landscapes right down to detailed macro photography, but please use the “product line” menu on the right to browse themes, if you don’t you will miss out on some real gems!
For me the real magic of this store is the atmosphere created by the collection as a whole. Browsing through it I could smell the countryside, feel the rain and even remember scenes from childhood provoked by the image of a tradtional british red phone box!
Durham Phonebox by PicturePie
This gallery is not just a diary of places visited by the photographer, it’s a diary of the life of an English person, or the memory of any visitor to the UK. The images capture slices of England from urban to countryside to the sky, through to the minute intimate detail of a bee on a flower. Add them all together and you’re in the UK. Wonderful! In the United Kingdom we are so lucky to be surrounded by so many beautiful places, but as with people everywhere we are often so busy we don’t notice them any more in our everyday lives. Purchasing an item we can have in our everyday lives, a print, a mousemat, or even a little keychain sometimes serves as a reminder to look and see outside our own little bubble.
My favorite image in the gallery (although it was extremely hard to choose just one!) had to be Hill End. It just reminded me so much of places I’ve visited, childhood family picnics and camping holidays. Great memories and miles away from being all grown up, paying bills and sitting in a traffic jam!
Picture Pie’s photography is available on posters/prints (custom framing available), postcards, greetings cards, postage, mousepads, magnets and keychains.
PICTURE PIE Browse UK store
PICTURE PIE Browse US store
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May 17, 2009 at 9:14 pm (Art, Digital Art, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: Art, cards, Digital Art, gifts, prints, t-shirts, tshirts, zazzle
Today I added a digital watercolour to my gallery that I have been working on for the last three days. It’s an image I created to cheer myself up as I was feeling really poorly.
On top of the Cafepress fiasco that has created so much work, I went down with a bit of a virus which caused an awful sore throat and the mother of all ear aches, and yes I was feeling soooo sorry for myself. So I started to create this thinking of all the reasons why I shouldn’t feel bad and when I’d finished it this morning I was really happy with it.
It made me feel brighter altogether, sunny and cheery. I uploaded it to my gallery, and withing 5 minutes of creating my products I received notification from Zazzle that it had received a “Todays Best” award. WOW…Now I was really really happy!!!
May has been a slow month for me, not too much in the way of sales…but this afternoon a very nice customer put the icing on the cake with an order for 18 Vintage Guitar keychains from Specialeetees at Zazzle, thank you!
That’s it now, “A Brighter Day” seems to have brought me some luck. I’ve printed a copy on fine art paper to frame and she’ll stay in my gallery as a lucky omen for a long time to come. If anyone buys her on my Zazzle products I hope she brings them some sunshine too!
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May 16, 2009 at 11:29 pm (Store Reviews, family, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: Art, cards, design, gifts, print on demand, Quality Design Directory, shopping, stores, t-shirt, tshirt, zazzle
Quality Design Directory
Here’s a quick intro to the Quality Design Directory at Specialeetees.com What and why???…
I’ve decided to create a little directory on my website to highlight some of the great art and design stores on Zazzle. Yes it’s true you can browse the Zazzle marketplace for a huge amount of designs, but like any other online marketplace that does have it’s drawbacks.
Firstly the sheer number of designs, okay that’s more choice, but that’s also a lot of trawling through pages of sometimes not so good, not so relevent designs until you hopefully find something that catches your eye, or you find something “that’ll do” for what you had in mind.
Secondly you may find “just the thing”, a few weeks later you want another one, or a friend asks where you got it, or you’d like to find something else by that same designer….Hmmm, now what was the name of that designer???!…that’s assuming of course that you’d even realised somebody actually created that design and it was possible to see other designs by them also; many that shop in the print on demand marketplaces such as Zazzle and CafePress have no idea. So you hop back to the marketplace and type in “blue crocodile with roses t-shirt” only to find there are 4,245 search results returned for you to sift through!
There are link lists all over the net for Zazzle stores, yep there are, but the usual scenario is that someone creates the list, then anyone that opens a Zazzle store heads off to add their link (including “Spot the Teen” that’s just filled his store with pixelated low quality graphics in 30 minutes cos it’ll make him rich really quick). So often the good guys on there can be drowned by Spot and all of his mates.
My directory will only ever contain stores built around good quality, well presented graphic art and designs. I don’t mean that in a snobby way either!…I’m in no way judgemental as to the subject of designs, providing a stores’ designs are produced and displayed to a good standard they will have a place in the directory. But that’s the point, I look at all entries, it’s not a free-for all, the only person that can add to that list is me.
And why?…Well I want to build a directory where people can browse the “boutiques” rather than the marketplace. A list for people to bookmark and refer to when they need an extra special card for Grandma, the hilarious gift for dad, something different for a brother, or just an awesomely different tshirt to say something about themselves. Already it has a wonderfully ecclectic range of stores from “all the family” themes, photography, right through to a store for goat fans and another for western rodeo designs! Each week I will “feature” and review one store, hopefully to highlight some great designs and cool products available.
The directory is in it’s infancy as are some of the stores, but I do hope you will visit, bookmark and come back over the coming months to watch it grow. There really are some fantastic artists’ stores included already, take a peek, you may find just what you’re looking for.
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May 13, 2009 at 4:24 pm (Art, Digital Art, Fantasy Art, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: AngelMist Gallery, Art, cards, Digital Art, fractals, gifts, original, prints, t-shirts, tshirts, zazzle
Take yourself off to another world with my fantasy landscape artwork Woodland Portal, a dark mystical place deep in the forest, only known to it’s inhabitants. The original piece was created using many layers of fractals and digital watercolour techniques. Available on prints and cards, but also specially adapted for t-shirts in my “Wearable Art” collection and other gifts too.
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May 10, 2009 at 1:06 pm (gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: cafe press, cafepress, online business, original designs, print on demand, shopping, t-shirts, tees, zazzle
Following the recent changes that CafePress (formerly seen as the primary supplier for print on demand products) have made to the payment structure for commission on user submitted designs; there is definitely an exodus from their marketplace by many of their top designers. Their closest rival Zazzle, on the other hand, are rolling out changes which enhance their appeal to the designers flooding out of CafePress. Zazzle allow designers to set the commission they receive. Zazzle you win!
Whilst my little stores that were on CafePress in no way categorise me as a top shopkeeper (I have nowhere near the number of designs it would take), my relatively small number of designs are original, well created and they sell. Under the new CafePress system, the sale in their marketplace of a design that had taken me many hours to create would receive the same commission as a very rough text only design that had taken somebody no more than 5 minutes to prepare and upload. The rate they have set…a very miserly 10% of retail price equating to a whopping $2.50 commission on a $25 t-shirt. Try selling that same t-shirt for $25 without my design!!! When you then couple this with the fact that at present CafePress charge what was considered a very reasonable fee of $59 per year per premium store, each designer has to sell in the region of 30 $20 items a year just to break even! Zazzles’ stores are FREE…CafePress you loose!
Do I sound bitter?…Well I don’t mean to, honestly. In the wake of this change I can only thank CafePress. I am not a pessimist by any means, I truly believe that all situations have a positive side. Yes it’s taken a lot of work just to create the backbones of my new stores on Zazzle and revamp the Specialeetees.com website, but it’s all good! For me there are many new advantages. To name just a few:
* My designs are now shown to my customers in a much more professional way with Zazzles’ superior quality product images.
* Customers can use my graphic, but then customise their product choice by changing the size of the image, background colours and adding their own text to any product in my stores.
* And to use the last words in my last sentance “MY STORES” plural! Because Zazzle are not going to charge me $59 for each one, I have been able to create themed stores, thus enabling me to better organise my artwork and designs…My customers do not have to wade through hundreds of sections in my store to find the designs that interest them. So far I have Specialeetees my general store so to speak, The English Tee Pot full of English themed designs, and the AngelMist Gallery which contains artwork which has never been displayed on CafePress previously.
These are just a few of the points regarding why, in my opinion, the top brass at CafePress really have lost touch with reality. Without designers they are just a warehouse full of blank products. Without a decent level of commission they will become just a marketplace full of substandard low quality designs. Yes of course CafePress have options, they could for example buy in cheap mass produced designs from Asian countries, but then you’ve lost the ethos, the integrity of why they evolved in the first place. To use their own words from their front page “Freedom of expression spoken here”…Hmmmm maybe that should now be changed to “same designs you’ll see in Walmart sold here”. CafePress you’ve lost your most precious asset…the many people that put countless hours into building your business into what it is!!!
For me, Onwards and Upwards…I have projects to work on (check out the new Quality Design Directory a new work in progress. Hear more about this soon!), I have designs to create and stores to build, but you sure won’t find them on CafePress!
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May 6, 2009 at 5:31 pm (england, family, gifts, shopping, t-shirts, zazzle)
Tags: english pubs, online business, original designs, pub signs, t-shirts, zazzle
People have often asked the question “Where should I get designs to put on t-shirts and stuff?” The answer is simple…In your head! The more original you can be the better. It’s no good trying to copy other people’s ideas because they’ve already been done. You must use your own imagination, put out your original ideas and that is what will bring customers, but more importantly that is what will make them return.
At the end of the day the type of customers shopping in designers’ print on demand stores or the Zazzle marketplace aren’t looking to buy some generic design that can be bought on any high street worldwide. They are looking to buy something totally different, so make it different. Even designs that I’ve sold in multiple numbers have been purchased by customers so far apart in the world that the chances of them ever meeting would be completely remote. They each have something that’s unique to them.
In short look for inspiration, it’s all around you. Find inspiration from the things in your life, the stuff that’s all around you everyday, real or imaginary.
Here’s an introduction to a weird and wonderful collection I’ve started working on. It’s been a lot of fun so far as it’s been a combination of designing and incorporating my strange sense of humour. I’m hoping to expand the collection over time until it’s overflowing because I’ve really enjoyed creating these ones so far, I just hope a few people out there share my humour!
It all started when one of my halloween designs ended up as a pub sign, that ignited a spark and off I went, often laughing at inappropriate times because I’d thought of another one…oh dear, I’m sure the locals think I’m completely mad; come to think of it so does my husband and he’s not affraid to tell me either.
Take a browse through the new Pub Signs collection at The English Tee Pot gallery on Zazzle. They’re all designed in the style of a tradtional English pub sign, ranging from the traditionally named to the totally fictitious, but all are designed to be great fun. Be warned, as pubs and drinking are an adult passtime, some designs do contain a little adult humourous inuendo, nothing offensive graphically though!
Each design is available on the full range of products which include t-shirts, gifts, cards posters and prints etc. It’s a great original and fun way to jazz up the drinks area at a BBQ, party or function!
If you’re interested in a little more about the background to these designs and British pub signs in general, I’ve compiled a squidoo lens on the subject too. There’s a little bit of history about them and even some links to relevent websites related to the subject. I think it’s worth a read, you can see it here.
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