The Shop Funk Blog

New This Week: “Emoticon Feelings”

Show how you’re feeling today! Do you feel or ? Feeling a little ? Or maybe you want to :’(.

Every real computer geek knows all about emoticons. Show it off with this new t-shirt!

Check it out on all available styles!

Happy New Year! Valentine’s Day designs and more!

I know, it’s been FOREVER since I’ve last updated! A year! Ok, haha, kidding. But it’s been about a month and a half, and so much has happened since then! First off, I’ve been a busy little bee lately, working on a ton of Valentine’s Day designs!

Here are a few of our latest designs…

And while you’re in the Valentine’s Day mood, why don’t you learn about the true story of Valentine’s Day? Or you could check out our other Squidoo lens, Valentine’s Cards, Apparel, Gifts, and More!

While we’re on the topic of Squidoo, I thought I’d mention my newly opened (ok, it was there a while ago, but now I’m going to start updating it more) blog on Squidoo, for Squidoo tips! Whoo!

Other updates to our website? Well, I redid the header image for our main shop, which was kinda bulky and useless, to a more functional and trimmer image. Thoughts? Leave a comment! I’m also working ahead on St. Patrick’s Day designs! Yay me! Perhaps my procrastinating streak will disappear for a while. We’ll see. So, in the meantime, check out those designs, and get shopping! Me, I’ll be sticking to my, “Love stinks, Valentine’s Day is commercialized!” mantra. It’s the only thing I can do.

See you next week!

So, I’ll be going out of town for the next week and a half! I’m so excited! For all you guys out here in the states, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, as I won’t be here to wish it at the moment!

Let’s not forget that the holidays are coming up, and after Thanksgiving comes Christmas, Kwanza, and Hanukkah!

You can check out this new design in our just opened Spreadshirt Shop!

We’re in the process of working on our entire Christmas/winter sections right now (and maybe vamping up our shop for the holidays!), so we’ll let you guys all know!

We’re featured on the CafePress blog!

Yay! There’s nothing like getting noticed; especially on the website where we make our t-shirts! CafePress recently featured my design in their blog post about Twilight T-Shirts!

And it’s not even the number 1 design out there! Don’t I feel special?

So be sure to check out our awesome FEATURED Twilight designs!

New This Week: “I Prefer Fictional Boys” Twilight T-Shirts

Yes, finally, I remembered to post the “New This Week”! So, this week we have more awesome Twilight t-shirt designs! First off,t he newest one…

“Do you prefer your boys to be fictional? Like the awesome characters of Twilight; Edward Cullen, Jasper Hale, Jacob Black? Show it off, with these t-shirts and buttons!”

Get it on buttons, t-shirts, hoodies, and more! Stickers and bags will be added soon!

Also, a few days older but still technically new this week….

Based on Edward’s swooning quote, “If I could dream at all, it would be about you.” Who doesn’t love Edward Cullen’s quote based t-shirts, huh? He always said the best (and cheesiest, at times, haha) things.

Both pictures are clickable, and I highly suggest you get your Twilight tees before the movie comes out! It’s coming out in only 17 days!!!! Ahhh!

Also, once you watch the movie, if you want to squee about it, I highly suggest you go here. Until you actually watch it though, get your Twilight gear here.

A little on marketing…

So, my friend decided to open up her own CafePress store, and I was giving her lots of tips and stuff on promoting it to the world. I decided to make a post to help any of you newbie CP shopkeepers out there!
Marketing can be very hard, and sometimes expensive, depending on the route you choose to take. Ads can get pricey, and sometimes other methods of offline promoting can also add up (i.e. magazine/newspaper listings). Here are some of the popular and easy ways to build up traffic; for free!

1. Blogging

Blogging is a very important part in promoting any business or website online. You can share your ideals on your blog (haha, Twix commercial), and it also works as a money maker. You can have multiple blogs and use programs like Google Ad Sense to put ads up and get money whenever other people click on them. The key part in this is to get a lot of traffic heading to your blogs, but if you keep making good posts and frequent ones, you’ll start to build up a bit of traffic!

I suggest using some free blog hosts, like Wordpress or Blogger.

2. MySpace/Facebook

These days, just about everyone uses MySpace or Facebook. Make a Facebook page or a MySpace page, and make sure to promote it on your CafePress, or website (or whatever you have!). People will want to add you because they probably have a page as well, so you can update them more frequently! Even professional businesses are starting to make MySpace and Facebook pages, so keep your fans up to date with either page!

3. Squidoo

If you’re looking to make free web pages, Squidoo is the place! Squidoo allows you to make individual “lenses”, which are just like a webpage. They love CafePress, and you can make your own lens and promote your store to the world, for free! You can also make money from Squidoo (or give to charity), with their eBay, CafePress, Etsy, Amazon modules, ads, and more!

4. Twitter

Twitter is a great way not just to communicate with your friends, but also potential customers! It’s free, and you can also Twitter from your phone! You can link people to important or cool things, or you can update your followers on what you were doing. Cool, huh?

That would be the basics to free marketing! Of course, it’s late, and I’m tired, so I’ve probably missed a lot. Haha. If you know some really awesome, FREE places for promoting your website(s), drop a comment, and we’ll include it in next time!

Also, I just saw the Twilight trailer for the first time offline! Even though I think the movie will NEVER live up to the book, I love the book so much that I get excited to see it! Eee!

Lots and lots of updates

We’ve got lots to update today! First off, I wanna share some awesome new sites for you to check out….

Twilight Gear!
Check out our own collective list of the best Twilight gear around! Looking for t-shirts, hoodies, bags, buttons, and more? See the best there is at the Twilight Gear squidoo lens!
Get the word out to your Twilight fan friends, so they can all get the coolest gear for the amazing book series by Stephenie Meyer!!!

Tree Hugger Tees Blog
Looking for awesome Green, Earth Day, or Eco-Friendly t-shirts? This blog updates every few days with a featured t-shirt! Find the best green t-shirts around the web! Coming soon: Subscribe to the newsletter and get weekly updates on the hottest Eco Tees!

Also, check out Funky Kicks!
If you’re looking for awesome shoes, Funky Kicks is the place to be! Get Twilight shoes, and more!


Check them all out at Funky Kicks.

And last, but not least, this week’s new t-shirt!

And….

Get on buttons, bags, and more! See the rest in different styles.

More updates on cooler stuff later, haha!

New This Week: “This is SO Going on my blog!” T-Shirts!

Ok, as an avid blogger myself (for real now, this is an understatement), I can relate to people who have had that “this is so going on my blog” thought whenever something interesting happens. That is because bloggers are the better people in the world. Yep. It’s true. And so are blog readers. You guys, reading this right now, are AWESOME. And you know what, people who don’t read blogs, or go on the computer? Lame. The internet is now. And so, I present to you, “Bloggers” T-Shirts this week!

(Buttons and stickers to be coming soon, of course.)

PS: So, I watched Final Destination today and am feeling in a horror movie mood, which reminded me that Halloween is coming up soon (duh!). So I’ll be posting about Halloween stuff soon, cause I truly love Halloween! Imagine growing up in a house where super-Catholic parents don’t appreciate Halloween as much as I do! It’s tragic! So in fact, this blog might just go a little crazy in the spirit of scary. Oh well.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October may be the month for Halloween, but it’s also something much more important!

Breast Cancer Awareness month is here! It’s important to be aware of this tragic disease that has taken too many lives. So do your part (if you have money, of course), and buy some Breast Cancer Awareness gifts! Even if you don’t know anyone that has suffered or is suffering this, it’s important to let the world know what is going on, and that we have to do something to stop it! You’ll be helping out as well, because throughout the month of October, 50% of the commissions we get from our BCAM gear will be going to the Breast Cancer Foundation!

Also, I’m so sorry for not blogging as much as I should be. Just busy with lots of school stuff, and real life stuff. You know the pesky real world; gets in the way of virtual living. I’ll try to be blogging more, so ya’ll can read more about those totally AWESOME sales and etc. Yay!

Swimming with Polar Bears?! Sweet!

So, I was in the middle of writing my essay for Lit when I came across this amazing lens on Squidoo. I’m a huge fan of Polar Bears, but since I’m writing my essay (*cough cough*), I just skimmed across it and found this link to a Polar Bear News blog.

Swimming with the polar bears.

I know. My enthusiasm is too huge to contain. I love polar bears (explains my “Love Polar Bears T-Shirt”, does it not?). I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about polar bears so much lately, but it could be because I sold a “Love Polar Bears” tee the other day. We haven’t sold a lot of those (sad!), but it just got me thinking. So now I have to add in Ontario, Canada to my list of places to go to in the next few years. Not that I have any money to get to those places, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, check out the Polar Bear tees, and maybe buy one? 20% of the funds go to PBI (Polar Bears International), so it would go to a good cause! And even if you’re like me, and have no money (or are just a fan of the Panda), send it to your friends. We’ve got to protect these amazing creatures!!!!

Also, go check out our School Guide for what to buy this school year, before it’s gone! Tomorrow, this poor thing will be out of existence (for the next year), and you won’t see it again until August! So check it.

PS: I guess if I’m going to talk about Polar Bears so much, I might as well make a category for it. Which I did.