Today I organized, and put away, the tubs of gear used Friday night for my vendor booth. I also counted my t-shirts, updated the website inventory, and figured out how many I sold in each size & style. Besides counting & cleaning up, I started preparing for an upcoming exhibit I'll be announcing very soon. This is on top of the mural I'm currently designing and the new job I recently started (both of which I haven't made public yet). One thing that has been announced is that I'm DJing & MCing Local Color's Estate Sale on Sunday, September 26th.
Another great event! My booth was in between two of my friend's booths, Jodi & Francisco, and it was a lot of fun talking and hanging with them. There was an adorable baby girl who walked into my booth and danced when I had my party lights on. I gave her a couple buttons and a high-five. I sold my last Medium San Jose shirt off the display and the rest of the black & blue ones so it's time to print some more. I'm considering doing something similar to the custom & pre-orders I recently did with my 1.0 shirts. A few friends & family received their t-shirt orders today and I started sketching ideas for a big new project coming up! More on that later!
I DJ'd my friend's birthday party today and during dinner my buddy, Robin, texted me that he received the t-shirts he ordered. I dropped all the orders off at the post office last night, right as they closed, and thought it would take a few days before they reached their destinations so I was surprised to hear to hear that he got his already. Later I saw my friends Amy and Alondra both got their packages too. In the pics below you can see the cards I drew for them and the candies I threw in each order, Pop Rocks and Cry Babies! Both are candies I used to love when I was a kid. I'm still holding off on showing the surprise gifts, inside the brown envelopes, till more people receive their orders, but you can see one on my Instagram stories right now!
That's right! After countless delays and being 2 weeks behind schedule, all the custom & pre-order 1.0 t-shirts are now on their way to their new owners! Each order includes some throwback goodies, a hand-drawn Thank You card and an extra special surprise gift! After everyone receives their order and opens their gifts I'll share what the surprise was! Stay tuned! I've been saying the shirts are shipping out tomorrow — all week. This time it's for real tho! The shirts and the individually sealed surprise gifts have been put in mailers along with some extra goodies and hand drawn "Thank You" cards. (I realized when I was almost done sealing the mailers that I forgot to sign most of the cards... Doh!) All I have to do now is pay & print the postage and drop them off at the post office. The home stretch!
I had work meeting that ran long then had to catch up on other work so I didn't ship all the t-shirt orders today. I did deliver one though. It was for a friend and it was exciting to watch her open up the bag and pull out the surprise gift I made! Can't wait to get the rest of the orders out!
I folded all the custom & pre-order 1.0 t-shirts and sorted them out. I also finished assembling the surprise gifts. Tomorrow I'll package everything, pay for postage, write short Thank You notes to everyone and drop them off at the post office. Hopefully they'll all reach their owners by this weekend.
The shirts are ready to go! The only hold up now is finishing the work on the surprise gifts that are going out with every custom & pre-order 1.0 shirts. I did the last bit of painting today and tomorrow they'll be assembled and maybe individually packaged. I can't wait to show everyone the gifts but it's a surprise to the people who bought the custom & pre-order 1.0 shirts and I don't want to spoil it. After enough people receive their t-shirts and open their gifts I'll post the pictures I've been taking during the whole process. Today was all about trial & error as I worked on the surprise gifts for the 1.0 custom & pre-orders. Plan-A didn't work, neither did Plan-B, now everything is riding on Plan-C. I'm almost done. The gifts and t-shirts are being mailed out Monday. After people receive their orders and see the surprise I'll post the finished products as well as process pics. The gifts are gonna be so much cooler than the actual shirts and I can't wait to share!
The last of the custom 1.0 t-shirts are back from the printers! I picked them up tonight. Tomorrow I'm gonna finish putting together the special gifts that'll be going out with each custom & pre-order shirt. I can't wait to show everybody what I'm making!
Today I dropped off the remaining blank shirts at the screen printers for the custom 1.0 orders. I think they'll be done in a day or two. I also started working on the gifts for everyone who purchased custom & pre-orders. I'm not gonna spoil the surprise but here are some teaser pics of what I'm making.
Tonight I got all my black 1.0 shirts back from the printers, finished, and a few of the pre-orders & customs too. I'm still waiting on a shipment of blanks to arrive before I can take them to get printed. Today I also picked up the Frankie Mcfly USA maps I reordered in every colorway. I also printed some Frankie Mcflyers at home. All this is for Friday's Street Mrkt & Art Walk where I'll be vending my usual gear.
The second shipment of shirts arrived today! I took them, and the shipment that arrived yesterday, and dropped them off at Downtown Screen Printers. I'm still waiting on 5 more shirts to arrive but they're gonna start printing, the ones I already dropped off, tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked because now I'm back on track and should have my shirts for Friday's event and be able to ship out the custom & pre-orders next week.
The first shipment of blank t-shirts arrived today! I'm still waiting on two more orders though. I might be able to restock my black 1.0 t-shirts and have them ready for this Friday's event and have the remaining shirts (customs & pre-orders) printed afterwards. I'm going to talk to my printers tomorrow. Hopefully the remaining shirts arrive tomorrow too.
Tonight I updated the neck label artwork for the 1.0 shirts. They're less cluttered and easier to read, especially after dropping the "wash cold - hang dry - have fun" line. I got an email this morning from one of the two t-shirt vendors I ordered blanks from saying that 7 of the 9 shirts I ordered from them weren't in stock. Is kinda pissed off but didn't have time to argue, nor would it have helped the situation. I spent the rest of the day emailing back & forth, looking for alternatives and contacting buyers. I think everything is good now but I really doubt I'll have the shirts ready by this Friday like I originally intended.
I'm only waiting on a couple email replies to order blanks for the 1.0 shirts. I didn't it would take this long. I didn't account for any delays, like the minimum orders or shirts to be out of stock. Now it's getting really close and I don't know if I'll get them printed and in hand before vending on First Friday on August 6th. Fingers crossed!
I spent hours today looking for alternatives to the shirts I wasn't able to buy, either because they were out of stock or had to be bought by the case. Then I emailed those alternatives to everyone whose custom orders were affected. Now I'm waiting on their replies. Today was also my install appointment for two new tires. The old tires, one had a big crack in the sidewall, both had tread that was pretty low. While I waited on my tires I started researching my first assignment from work, using CRM (customer relationship management) software. At night I went to Meeting of the Minds, where artists get together then partner up to paint a canvas. I wasn't going to paint, just hang out, but then a local artist Chuck invited me to work on the canvas he'd been painting by himself. Busy day!
All custom & pre-order 1.0 shirt invoices have gone out so it's time to buy the shirts. While I was going through my orders and adding the blanks to my cart I noticed couple styles & colors of shirts can only be ordered by the case. So instead of being able to order three individual shirts I would need to buy 72 of each (216 total pieces). That's a no-go. Then there are a few shirts that are out of stock in certain colors & sizes. Those I'm not surprised by but they're a setback nonetheless. Tomorrow I'm going to search for alternatives, in-stock, and reach out to those who's orders are affected.
I spent a few hours this afternoon in a meeting, getting an overview of the online tools & services I'll need to learn for my new jobby-job. It's a lot of stuff to wrap my head around and get familiar with but I'll figure it out. During the meeting, when I went back to feed the parking meter, I noticed a big crack on one of the tire's sidewalls. I was planning on driving my car to Ukiah for the weekend to together with a bunch of my cousins. For a while I thought I was going to miss it. Luckily my brother it also going so I'm hitching a ride with him tomorrow afternoon. The tire replacement will wait till next week. And in other news... I'm just about done processing all the 1.0 pre-order & custom-order requests that came in yesterday. All the the confirmation emails have gone out and most invoices too. I'll try and wrap that up over the weekend while I'm away. It feels good to be busy again and I'm excited to hang out with my cousins these next few days!
Today I called last call on Instagram for the 1.0 pre-orders and custom shirts. I received a few pre-order sales and custom-order soon after. More than had come in in all the days since I started this campaign. I was pleasantly surprised! I'm still in the process of confirming most of the custom orders via email. Once they're confirmed I'll send invoices and place the orders. So far everything is going good and still on track to have the finished shirts ready by the first week of August.
I sent out a few new mockups today for some custom tees. Some toddler & youth size crew necks and adult women's V-necks for my friend and her two daughters. It'll be so cool to see them all wearing my shirts! I think I'm going to call last-call for preorders tomorrow then place the order on Friday and hopefully have the shirts shipped early next week. In other good news, I had a meeting today regarding a mural that I'll start working on next month. I'll share more details on that after the agreements are signed and everything is in place. It's a pretty exciting project and I can't wait to tell everyone about it!
Today I created some mockups for a couple custom requests. A teal v-neck and black crop top. I had to do a little research on the shirts since they're not the usual blanks I print on. I also created new accounts with a couple different t-shirt vendors with bigger selections. I'm waiting on them process my applications before I can see resale prices and quantities in-stock. Hopefully that gets done within the next couple days so I can place my orders and have them shipped then delivered to the printers.
That means the the window for pre-orders is closing soon. Sometime this week. I'll give it a few more pushes on Instagram before ordering the blanks. Tonight I started thinking about including fun little prizes for people who pre-ordered shirts. I got a few ideas that I'll be working on over the next few days.
It was a good day from the very start! I was able to drive a friend who I haven't seen in years to her doctor's appointment in the morning. I shared my LEGO 1.0 Shirt pics to Instagram and I think people got a kick out of them. I sold one shirt that was in stock and got a pre-order for a custom tee, a purple V-Neck. And to top it all off I got a new job! A 5-month contract gig that can turn into a full time position, with a local organization I truly love. More on that later... |
Frankie Mcfly's
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