Shameless Self Promotion

About three months ago I got a crazy idea to start an online store with cafepress.com. I started with their free basic shop, and soon the bug bit me and I upgraded to a paid premium shop. Several weeks of insanity followed, trying to come up with new and clever designs. The store started with a couple of schnauzer designs, inspired by the infamous Cragar, but has expanded to include poker, chemistry, and floral designs. Seems a little disjointed, I know, but those are the things I enjoy the most. Where did the chemistry part come in? Heck, I have to do something with the 4 years I spent in college studying chemistry and the 13 years spent working in R&D!

Sales started in May, with a total of 12 shirts sold for the entire month. Not a record-setter by any stretch of the imagination, but I was still pleased to know that someone actually spent their money on a design I made.

Inspired by the "rush" I had in May, I started working on more designs. Almost all of them have been poker-related, mostly because aside from working on the store, I've been playing a lot of poker. My Poker Stuff section has bulged to over 20 designs in the last month or so, and I'm currently working on even more ideas.

I've been thinking of different ways to get the word out about the store, and aside from optimizing for search engines and tagging, I thought including a special category here may work, too.

So in an act of shameless self-promotion, I decided to include my monthly featured design here on puppytoes.net.

The featured designs for July and August will of course be poker designs, especially since the World Series of Poker is in full swing. The design I chose to feature for July is "All-In, Baby". I incorporated a spade into a tribal design inspired by a friend's tatoo. Being a fan of tribal art myself, I thought it turned out pretty good. If you're a poker fan, check it out and tell me what you think!

In addition to my monthly featured designs, I'll also post new designs I'm excited about. I have a couple of poker ideas in the works - not centered so much on t-shirts but on calendars, clocks, and prints to hang in anyone's poker room. I'm also thinking of putting designs on 2.5" round magnets to serve as card protectors. I may have those ideas ready to roll out in fall.

If you've made it through my Shameless Self Promotion, 1. thanks for not falling out of your chair in boredom, and 2. let me know what you think of the store and its designs. If you may be interested in finding a design you don't see there, contact me and I'll see what I can come up with!