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!

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!

I dropped off one package (a couple prints) at the post office this afternoon and was reminded that the mailers don't fit inside the mailbox slot in the drive-thru so I had to go inside to drop it off. Then I went to deliver a t-shirt order across town. (Usually if the shipping address is close by and I can leave the package in a safe location, by checking Google street view maps first, then I'll deliver the order myself.) Today I left the package on a front porch behind a statue. I took a pic (obviously) so I could email it to the customer and let them know their order has been delivered and where to find it.

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.

I spent hours today uploading my mockups to my online store, writing the copy, and creating a form for people looking for a different styles and colors of shirts than the ones I currently use. I also talked to my screen printer buddy about my pre-order strategy, costs, and timeline for when I'll deliver the blanks and receive the printed shirts. So far, so good!

Today I photographed 6 different colored t-shirts then made mockups of my 1.0 (logo) tee in Photoshop. I digitally erased the neck tags in the photos too. The plan is to offer the color tees as presales, and not carry a full stock of them. Maybe just one color. I've reached out to my screen printers and I'm waiting on a quote before offering pricing and making the presale orders live on my online store.

Today on Instagram I uploaded pictures and video of the button display I built for my vendor booth. It was a last minute build. I made it the night before the Rose, White & Blue Parade event and I'm pretty happy how it came out. I bought a used frame from the Goodwill, yellow felt from Joann fabrics, hinge & back board from Home Depot, and I already had the scrap lumber & velcro at home. I'm going to leave it as-is for now, until it breaks or I come up with a better design, or solution, to display my buttons at events.

I spent the day preparing for Sunday's Rose, White & Blue event. I pulled everything from my checklist of stuff, built a display for my buttons (pictured below) and framed all 5 FRANKIE MCFLY USA print colorways. Everything took longer than anticipated and I didn't do a full set up of my booth at home to see how it'll look. Hopefully there's no issues at the event tomorrow when I set up the new displays & merch for the first time. Either way it's gonna be fun and I can't wait to be out there.

Another busy day getting ready for tomorrows event at Valley Verde. I went through all my paint buckets and made swatches. Then used Adobe Illustrator to assign colors to every shape and a number to every color in the digital image. Then I went to panel and wrote all the numbers on it. Tomorrow I'm gonna print some simple instructions for guests (the numbers & colors) then take apart the frame and take everything to the site and reassemble it and get set up before the event starts. I hope it's a good turn out and people want to come and paint-by-number.

Holy shit, what a long day! I put two coats of primer on the 4'x8' panel, built the frame, hung the panel on the frame, then transferred the image outlines from my laptop using a projector. Luckily I don't have to paint it till the Valley Verde event on Saturday with help from guests & passerby's.

I started building the frame for the 4'x8' panel we'll be painting on Saturday for the Valley Verde event. I cut some 1"x3" pieces to make a 4'x6' support frame then glued and screwed it to the 4'x8' panel. I'll continue working on it tomorrow, after the has glue set, and and figure out how I'm going to build a stand for it. I'd like it to sit two feet off the ground so no one has to squat to paint the bottom portion. I'm eventually going to transport it which means I might have to take it apart then reassemble it on site. I love building stuff like this, I only wish I wasn't pressed for time!

Today was busy! I worked on a button order. Followed up on another design job and sent an invoice. Went over to Local Color and picked up paint and supplies for this Saturday's event at Valley Verde. (RSVP here) Bought an 4'x8' panel to paint, lumber to build a stand, and more supplies at Home Depot. Then drove to my brother's studio at night to borrow his projector. Tomorrow I'm gonna prime the panel and start constructing the stand and hopefully go for a hike in the evening.

I dropped off the first couple prints at the post office today! One's off to Sunnyvale and the other to Salinas. I also delivered one print myself, here in town. I needed some "Do Not Bend" stickers so I made a quick design and printed them on some Avery labels I had laying around. I really like the way they came out!

Last night I ordered the supplies to package & ship 11 x 14 prints. First up is glassine paper. This goes over the face of the print so it doesn't get scratched. I went with paper, instead of plastic sleeves, to protect the artwork. It arrives in a couple days. Next are the rigid cardboard mailers for sending prints via mail. I bought prints from a friend and this is what he used. They look like they can take a beating. Unfortunately they don't arrive for at least another week. The last items are the white paper envelopes for local pickups and deliveries. They arrive tomorrow. They're flimsy compared to the brown mailers and the prints would get damaged if I mailed them in these envelopes without extra reinforcement. Which I might have to do till the mailers arrive. Next up is to order the the first run of prints and list them for sale on my online store.

That last time I went hiking one of my boots started making a flapping sound and when I got home I saw that the sole came unglued from the middle of the shoe. Today I glued the sole to the shoe and clamped it tight for a couple hours before lacing up for another hike. My friend and I went to Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve and did the whole park, one loop a little over 4 miles long. Easy Peasy, and my boot seemed to hold up.

Monday was tax day. It got extended from April 14th because of covid. I still waited till the last day to file. This was my third year reporting self-employed income and even though the preparation has gotten easier after streamlining my record keeping process, it still sucks a load of ass. I took lots of notes and screenshots as I filled out the Turbotax forms to make it easier for next year but I might start paying someone else to do my taxes.

It sounds like an organization of trained & certified cats you can hire to do your taxes. In actuality it's an abbreviation for Tax Categories and I spent most of Sunday making sure I properly categorized every transaction I made in 2020. Monday is tax day and I'm glad I'm almost done. 

434.1This afternoon I went and bought a heavy-duty speaker stand for my single QSC K10 speaker and a couple 1/4" to XLR cables. I'd been using my work's DJ equipment all these years and now that I'm buying stuff for myself I'm reminded of how expensive everything is. Later, after practicing some mixing, I started tinkering with my bikes rear brakes and I think I fixed them. They weren't tight enough before. Now I gotta figure out why my front brakes squeak when I slow down or come to a stop. Tonight I finally went back to working on my taxes. I added up all the miles I'd driven in for business purposes in 2020 and it was 434.1.

I took my bike for a test ride down the street today. A rode for few blocks and noticed the front derailleur wasn't letting my shift into the high gear. I watched a couple Youtube videos when I got home to try and troubleshoot and fix it but decided I'll take the bike back to Good Karma Bikes tomorrow so they can do it and/or show me how. I then spent most of the day working on creating a new resume from scratch. My old resumes were never that good so I wanted to do a complete overhaul. I took a break from the resume to enter the mileage I logged for the Casitas US map mural project into my newly updated spreadsheet, made to make next years tax preparation a little easier.

I got my second vaccine shot this afternoon and got a nifty button! I didn’t experience any side effects either. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my fully vaxxed friends & family in a few weeks after the vaccine has taken full effect.

The tax prep is still dragging along nicely. I did a bit of work tonight. Mostly reworking the forms & spreadsheets I use to keep records. I do my best to log everything but I’m constantly trying to improve & streamline the whole bookkeeping & tax preparation process.

Happy Star Wars Day!

It’s that time again. Today I logged onto TurboTax and began the process. I think this will be my 3rd year doing the self-employed version. It’s gotten easier every year but it still feels like a huge chore while I’m doing it and an accomplishment once I’m done. This year I’m going to document the whole process and create a “how-to” guide for next year. I’m constantly updating how I keep records to make filing faster and more efficient .

It's that time again. Time to pay the state and federal government their cut of my money. First I'm going to pay California's sales & use tax then I'm getting on Turbo Tax to file my income tax. It aint much. After covid, every event was canceled and I barely made any sales in 2020.

I’m all done installing the 3D wall panels at Redwall Studio! I went full vampire mode and worked at night and slept during the day. It came out pretty badass. Check out the notes I made before I began installing the panels on the wall.