Hey - POD'ers...Add Your Blog

This is for all of my Print-On-Demand friends. I created an aggregator for any blogs that have to do with the Print On Demand business at blog aggregators by FeedCluster.com. Just another way to get all of our blogs in one place, and hopefully up our traffic count. So, here's the address of what I created: podshirts.feedcluster.com. It's easy peasy to add your blog. Just click that link and on the right you'll see an option to add your blog (of course, you'll need to start an account). Once there are a few members, I'll add a widget on this blog that shows posts from members. There's also a badge you can put on your blog, too!

If you have other blogs, it was super easy to set this aggregator up. Let me know if you start one realted to a different topic, and I'll post it here!

Weekend Re-Cap

We had a fun weekend. Well, on the surface, anyway. It's hard to balance all the balls I have up in the air. Restaurant, kids, t-shirts, affiliate marketing, making the house look like it's not a pig sty. This weekend, we did a lot of stuff with the kids.

Saturday we went to breakfast with the Easter Bunny and an egg hunt. The girls had a great time. They had pancakes (their favorite), got to see their two cousins, and completely made out at the egg hunt. They each found three tickets, which entitled them to prizes. Chloe got a big and two small prizes, and Becca got 2 mediums and a small. The prizes were stuffed animals. My kids LOVE stuffed animals. There is a strange addiction there that I have yet to break. They were also very nice to their cousins. When I suggested that they each give one stuffed animal to their cousins (because they didn't get any tickets) they didn't even flinch. I was a proud mama. They were truly happy to make their cousins happy.

Then it happened.

We left the egg hunt and headed to the restaurant. We sat in a ton of traffic because of the inbound Parkway West closure this weekend. Becca started. "I'm jealous because Chloe got a bigger bunny than me!" Blah, blah, blah. Seems that every time we do something fun, the crabbies come out right after. We made it home, she complained some more, and eventually ended up on time out (I think it was for hitting her sister).

So, we wake up on Sunday and it's our day to go to the circus. The girls were excited. We all get ready and head down to the arena. They had fun watching Tony squirm as he saw the clowns outside mingling with the crowd. As we walked in and started going up the ramp to our seats, there was a vendor selling light up toys. Tony and I gave each other the "should we get these" look, and we bought one for each kid. The vendor says "twenty four." Twenty four? Dollars!?! I clutched my heart as Tony dished out the cash. We went in, found our seats, and walked around on the floor for a bit. They were offering elephant rides, pony rides and a big bouncy-slide thing. I entertained the thought of buying them tickets. I walked over to the ticket table and found it was SEVEN DOLLARS A TICKET! Pony ride for seven bucks? I don't think so. Big bouncy slide (the same one they have at many local festivals for $1 per ride)? No. I may have parted with fourteen bucks for the elephant ride, but the line was enormous. We bought a 'family pack' of tickets, which included a drink and hot dog for each person. We went and got our food (and those tickets were worth it, BTW), stopped by the cotton candy booth, plunked down 8 bucks for cotton candy, and headed to our seats.

The girls enjoyed the show. It seemed to drag a bit, but I'm glad we went. We bought more food. Pretzel, pop corn, peanuts and fries. As I emptied my wallet of cash, I was at least happy that we were all together, having fun. The girls were most excited about seeing Spider Man. He came out during the second half of the circus and did a little acrobatic ditty. They were happy, so I was, too. Spider Man made a second appearance with the clowns, but he was sort of like Elvis. Trim, muscular and svelte the first time you saw him. notsomuch the second time :)

Of course, as soon as we got in the car, Becca was complaining that she didn't get to go on the bouncy slide. Ugh. I about freaked out. I told her that I may not EVER take her to do anything fun ever again, because she just complains when it's over.

Yeah...that's my stellar mom moment of the weekend.

Tony could tell that I was just over this behavior. When we got home, he took the girls up the street for THREE HOURS!!! I had three hours to myself, and I was totally awake. I cleaned. Yeah, not the most exciting or relaxing thing to do, but it made me feel better, and I enjoyed it. I think Tony feels bad that it's going to be just me and the chicks for Easter vacation...and it looks like it's going to be too cold for them to play outside.

So, I had a full 'mommy' weekend. The restaurant was slower than usual because of the traffic situation. I have a clean-ish house (there was no scrubbing involved). I worked a little bit on my new affiliate site. It still has a long way to go, but I'll get there. And I had a request for a t-shirt design. I set up a store a while back, with all intentions of putting a bunch of designs in it. But then we, you know, bought a restaurant. So, I haven't worked on it much, but I have done a few special requests. Here's the one I did this weekend:

Peace, Love & Baseball Organic Toddler T-Shirt

I still haven't gotten it up on Zazzle, but maybe I'll do that now. OK...I think I've babbled enough for now. Next post? I think I'll touch on the fact that Becca is crying every morning because she doesn't want to go to school. Yeah. Fun.

Thought Soup

I usually don't post a lot of 'techie' stuff on this blog. I'm considering starting another blog for this type of thing. But I DID want to at least mention it.

Let me back up, first. I started blogging as a way to get the word out about the t-shirts and gifts that I design for CafePress and Zazzle. That was almost two years ago. I really didn't know too much about blogging and such, so I jumped in with a free blogger account. I've been pretty happy with it.

But, once I opened the restaurant, I got a blog started over there. And I used Wordpress. I love it! It's on my own domain, and it's much easier to tweak things. I have since used Wordpress to set up an affiliate site or two. And I'm getting better at it! I've learned so much...how to install wordpress, playing with themes, and so on. I recently did two things with Wordpress, and they've made me very happy.

First, I actually PURCHASED a theme. I purchased the Flexx theme from iThemes. I love it! It's very easy to change the layout, colors and pics. Easy peasy. I also found a plug in for automatic updating. I loved it so much, I actually donated to the author (which is something I can't afford to do as much as I would like). Here's the link to the plug in.

Now, am I going to break up with blogger? Nah, I don't think so. It's worked for me so far, and I guess I'm sort of attached. I have, however, re-directed links to my own site. So, you can also find this stuff at http://blog.brainlint.net.

Just a little mention of regular life: The new menu starts at Downey's House on Tuesday, so I've been busy! I'm printing them up today. It's been a crazy couple of weeks trying to get the menu together, programming it into our POS system, and making sure we have all our i's and t's dotted and crossed. On top of it all, the girls and I are headed down to Florida on Wednesday. Packing? Haven't even really thought about it yet.

I also (finally) finished reading Dead Until Dark. I really, really enjoyed it...even though it took me much longer than it should have to read it. I bought the next 2 books to read while we're in Florida. Hopefully I get enough 'me' time when we're there. If you watched True Blood, the book and the show are pretty similar. But I was surprised that there wasn't any mention of Tara (the bartender). I'm not going to spoil anything for anybody, so I'll just say that there WERE differences in the book versus the series. But I think that both are very good.

OK, the girls are complaining that everything is 'Booooorrrrriiiiinnnnnnnggggg!' How about an exciting trip to Staples, girls? (OH, that makes me thing of a quick side note: I have always loved the smell of office supply stores. I'm strange. I love the smell of toner and paper. It makes me happy. We walked into Staples yesterday and Becca, with a smile on her face, said 'Mom, mmmmmmm...it smells GOOD in here! Poor thing.)

Wow...this post really did go just about everywhere. Like I've mentioned before, sometimes I just can't focus :) Have a great day!

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

Well, Becca has been playing with her 'wiggly' tooth for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday, it REALLY was wiggly. I asked if she wanted my help, and she said that she did. I held the tooth and told her to move her head as much as she wanted to. She moved her head a bit, felt the pain, tasted the blood, and decided that it was better for nature to just take its course. Today, however, after pushing it around with her tongue all day, she got brave. She went right into the powder room, and after a few minutes of hesitation just ripped the darn thing right out. She was very surprised at how small it was.

So, I got to be the tooth fairy tonight. I wasn't quite sure what the going rate for the first tooth was, so i figured five bucks would be OK. She'd better not expect five bucks every time, though. So, here's Becca (and her trusty side kick Chloe) talking about her tooth.

In other news, I have been a total slacker parent over this Christmas Vacation. I haven't made Becca keep up on her extra reading work very much. And I haven't been writing my good ol' trusty to-do lists. So, I end up dong whatever I feel like doing, and not being very productive. I've decided that I get to slack for one more day (Sunday), and then it's back with the nose to the grindstone. Speaking of that, I better quit blabbering here. Gotta go finish getting my designs up over at Zazzle. Have a great night!

New shirts :)

Hi! Before I post about the new shirts I did this morning, I wanted to add a quote to my post from yesterday. I am adding the quote "Chloe, kitchen towels are NOT for boogers." There's another one I never thought I would say. I'm sure I'll come across more on a daily basis. I'll try to share.

So, I did a new Groundhog Day design. I don't know what it is about Groundhog Day for me. Just that glimmer of hope that Spring might be just around the corner. Hey, I know I'm grasping, but I really don't like winter. Anyway, here they are. One for the chickies and one that's more for the boys:

Phil BFF Groundhog Day Hooded Sweatshirt


Homeboy Groundhog Day Baseball Jersey

As always, I made more than just shirts. There are buttons, tiles, mugs, mousepads and all kinds of stuff. The above links will take you to CafePress, but I made some over at Zazzle, too. Here's a peek from over there:

Phil is My Homeboy by hdowney

Phil is my BFF by hdowney

So, now it's off to get our running around done before the Steeler game today. Just a little excited about that. And I guess I really should start doing my Christmas cards. Ugh!

Quick Zazzle Sale!

Hey! I just saw a twitter from Zazzle, and they're having a sale today for 5 hours, starting at Noon PST until 5 PST (that's 3:00 - 8:00 for my peeps here on the East Coast). Here's a re-hash of the tweet:

5HOURZFRIDAY Friday Catch up Sale Noon to 5pm PST only -$5 off shirts -$4 off mugs -$3 off stamps -$2 off everything. So, click the link and enter the code 5HOURZFRIDAY to get your discount!

Zazzle 5 Hour Sale

It was like workin' in a sweatshop!

Well, let me tell you about the past two weeks in regards to my t shirt shops. CafePress added some dark sweatshirts and hoodies. I was (and still am) very excited about it. The dark hoodies sell well on Zazzle, and I know they'll do well over at CP. I added them to my shops a couple of weeks ago. I have one, very large, job/occupation shop. I had to go in and tweak 2/3 of the designs I have for the sweatshirts. Then I added them to my other stores, Brainlintdotnet and PeaceLoveand( <--- that shop needs some love!). I worked on it whenever I could. At the mall when my kids were at the birthday parties. At home while they were watching a movie. After they went to bed and I stayed up until 1:30. Well, I'm finally done! Here are some of the sweatshirts:

Peace Love Candy Canes Hoodie (dark)


Off Duty Bitch Zip Hoodie (dark)


Bartender Barcode Zip Hoodie

So, now I can get back to adding all of my stuff on Zazzle. Which will definitely take me more than two weeks. Oh well, at least I'm never bored.

I think I may have a post coming up soon about the Onorato tax and the fact that they're lowering it. I just need to have more than 10 minutes to myself to do it! Have a great Monday!

OH, I just edited this to add that this is my 100th post!!! Yeah for me!

More free shipping at Zazzle

Hey, Zazzle extended their free shipping code into today. So if you missed it yesterday, go and use it today. Here's my post from yesterday with the details.

Another great Cyber-Monday coupon!

Well, here I am at the restaurant, trying to catch up on all my work. Now that I'm only here one full day a week, Mondays tend to be a little bit crazy. Anyway, had to just jump in and share this great coupon from Zazzle for today! Free shipping on everything!!!! CafePress better step it up. Here are the details: Enter the code CYBERZSHIP08 - there are no minimums! OK, more later :)


Here's the link to the Zazzle coupon page!

Drive by Posting

OK, I have to be quick today. Becca's home sick from school, I have a big honkin' sinus infection, and it's the busiest bar day of the year. I do have a free shipping coupon from Cafe Press for ya. The code is FEMHOL10 and it's good on purchases over $50 up until November 28th.

Lots of stuff to do on the Print-On-Demand projects, too. Zazzle just made a bulk add tool available (so I can FINALLY get all of my designs up there) and CafePress just added dark sweatshirts and zip up hoodies. Looks like I have projects to last me for a while. That's on top of all the birthday parties coming up, Christmas shopping, decorating, and general everyday life stuff. I need a clone. OOH, like that movie 'Multiplicity' with Michael Keaton. The kids sure would have fun with the 3rd clone (or was it the 4th?). You know, the one who was....well...let's say mentally challenged.

OK, gotta bolt! Happy Thanksgiving Eve!!!

OH, I forgot about a couple of things that happened on Friday.  The bad thing?  My payroll company took the entire payroll amount ($7,000) out of my checking account and paid my employees.  Um, payday is November 2oth.  They took it out SIX days early.  I about threw up when I pulled up my online banking!!!  Luckily the money was in there, but there are a lot of checks floating out there waiting to be cashed.  They fixed their mistake (well, enough where my account would be ok), but that was just another bump in the day.

Later on Friday night, I got an email from Zazzle, and here's the graphic:

Well, I added the writing that says "Hey!  That's my design!"  Anyway, that was a nice little surprise.  OH, and if you're looking for aprons, they are $4 off at Zazzle if you use the code TURKEYAPRONS until November 25. (Just in case you can't see the pic).

Look at that!  Two posts in 12 hours.  I'm getting there!

Hello again!

Wow, it sure has been a while! We're finally getting 'into a groove' at the restaurant. The opening was completely crazy, but business has been good. It's really such an awesome experience, and we're all learning and adjusting as we go!!! I'd love it if you came to visit us for lunch, dinner or fun! You can get directions, phone number and such at our website, downeyshouse.com. The site itself is still a work in progress, but it's getting there!

Well, the reason for this post was actually because I got a great Zazzle.com coupon in my email today. You can get free shipping on apparel if your order is $40 or more until July 25th. Just enter the code SUMMERSHIRTS when you check out. That's a pretty darn good deal. I think I'm gonna go get me some Downey's House shirts. Here's one that I added the other day:

You can move the logo around, make it bigger or smaller, and put it on all different kinds of shirts. Anyway...stay tuned to this blog for my open letter to Dan Onorato. I really hate the drink tax.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, hello! I've been busy with a bunch of stuff for the restaurant, and a bunch of t-shirt stuff. But I've jumped in here for a few reasons, just to keep everybody in the loop

First, here's the scoop on Downey's House. Long story short, we put a bunch of money in escrow so that the PLCB could get tax clearance from the Dept of Revenue and the Dept of Labor and Industry. That was Tuesday. We asked if we might close on Friday (tomorrow), and we were told that Friday would be a miracle. But we're all shooting for early next week. Which would put our opening around Memorial Day.

Next, I actually did a new t shirt design. I've been updating the job/occupation store (www.cafepress.com/noshoptalk and www.zazzle.com/notworking), but I actually added a new one to Brainlint.net. So, here's the shirt (via Zazzle):

Sarcastic Comment by hdowney
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

And here's the framed tile from CafePress:

Sarcastic Comment Framed Tile

Number 3 is a cool story:

I had Chloe (3) in the back seat of the car, and she decided to put the window down. We're driving along, enjoying the warm weather and fresh air. I was in a great state of mind. Riding high on the whole 'life is good vibe. All of the sudden, Chloe starts FREAKING OUT. I have no idea what happened. She is hysterical. I pull over and get her to calm down. Turns out, she was holding her sister's little stuffed Tigger out the window. Well, you know what happened. SO, I turn around and head back down the road (which is a 2 lane road, but pretty busy). I see it, pull over into a driveway, and try to cross the street. The whole time I'm watching cars drive over Tigger. Nobody actually ran it over---until---the big semi did. Well, I got Tigger. He's really no worse for the wear, and Chloe and I have decided to keep this a little secret.

She said that she'll never hold anything out the window again.

When we went to pick up Becca from preschool, Chloe didn't want to go. She said she didn't even want to see Becca. She sat in the car with her woobie (aka blanket) over her head. When Becca finally got in the car, Chloe totally kissed her ass. Becca was being silly, and Chloe said (in a sucking up kind of way) "Becca, you're SOOOOO funny!"

She hasn't told Becca what happened, and she probably won't find out until she learns how to read and finds this blog.

Happy Day!

New Zazzle Coupon

Hey! I just ordered some Scooby Doo T-Shirts for my kids, and i got a coupon code for Zazzle, if you need one. Here it is:

$5 off your next purchase of $20 or more at Zazzle.com: GOVGVAYOMRZDRNKLJBRL. This code expires on 4/28/2008.

Sorry I've been so crazy with the bar that I haven't been posting too much. Will catch you up soon. Maybe when I'm sitting by the pool at my folk's house in Florida. We're going on Wednesday.

Zazzle Coupon Code

Hey! I just got a new coupon code from Zazzle, if you're interested:

It's good through April 12th for 15% off. If you can't see the picture above, the code is ZAZZLEBLOOMS.

Here are the 2 newest shirts that I've put up on Zazzle:

Momnesia
by hdowney

Easter Bunnys Top 8
by hdowney

I'll try to come back later today and tell you about my experience on Saturday night at dinner. Gotta go to preschool and pick up Becca!

Hey! That's my shirt!

Hey...just a very cool little thing that I wanted to share (and that made me all happy and proud inside). I got an email from an employee at Zazzle, and they told me that they put one of my designs on an insert. They're including this insert with every (yes, every) package that they send out in the next couple of weeks. Pretty damn cool. Will it bring me more sales? Who knows, but it DID make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Here's a picture of the ad:



You can check out my Zazzle gallery at zazzle.com/hdowney. Or to see the "Not Officially Irish (but happy to fake it)" shirt, you can just go here. Rather get it on CafePress? Just go here

So, I'm tickled pink. And that's good.

Zazzle Coupon

Hey! Here's the newest coupon from Zazzle that I've found. $4 off shirts until March 5th. It's a quickie, but hey...four bucks is four bucks. Here are the details:

$4 Off Apparel

$4 discount applied to orders of one or more qualifying apparel items (any style from the Mens, Womens, Kids and Baby categories). The coupon code ZAZZLESTPATS must be entered during checkout to receive the offer. Offer is valid from March 2, 2008 at 12:00am PST through March 5, 2008 at 11:59pm PST. 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.

In other news, we're going to try to go sled riding today. We have a great sled riding hill right out back. A few of the family members are coming over, and we're going to watch the Pens. Just some hangin' out on a Sunday. But, I still have to clean the house. Oh well. I'm hoping that this will be the last chance we get to go sled riding this year. Because I'm totally and completely over winter! Bring on Spring!!!!!!

Hottest cute shirt of the day!

Hello everybody! One of my designs won 'Hottest Cute Shirt of the Day.' So, you can get it at 20% off and free shipping until March 1st. It's from my Peace, Love and Whatever gallery at Zazzle. I also have the design available on CafePress if you go to www.peaceloveshirts.com.

Peace, Love and Shamrocks
by PeaceLoveAnd
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

Crazy Life

Well, I definitely haven't kept up on blogging in a while. But I'll let you know what's going on. First of all, I'm trucking along with t-shirts and such at CafePress and Zazzle. Sales keep coming in (although February hasn't been as fantastic as December and January). I'm so glad I can do work there instead of having to leave the house! Thank God for the internet!!!

In other news, I think I may have already mentioned that we bought a bar/restaurant. Well, things are moving along. Our liquor license went up in the window a few weeks ago, and we had our interview with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board on Tuesday. Our agent sort of hinted that everything probably won't go thru until May or so. But at least that gives us some time to get everything together. Going in, I knew there would be a lot of work to do, but something new always seems to pop up. I feel like I'm pregnant with a restaurant. You can do all you want to prepare, but you won't really know what life is going to be like until it's actually here. I'm working on setting up the website (slowly), and we will eventually have a blog there also. The site will be www.downeyshouse.com (but there's nothing there right now). I have, however, set up a page on myspace...so come and be our friend! Our profile is at http://www.myspace.com/downeyshouse

Oh, and this picture is from the day they posted our liquor license. Oh, by the way, I don't think I've mentioned the location....It's in Robinson Township in the West Way Shoppes on Route 60...where Jabby Joe's is now. More to come...

Free Shipping at Zazzle

Hey...a new promo at Zazzle. Enter code LOVERAPPAREL for free shipping on apparel orders of $50 or more. Expires February 14th. Check out my three Zazzle Stores:

Brainlint.net on Zazzle
Peace, Love and Whatever
I'm Not Working

I've been working like crazy on these, and my 3 CafePress stores. Will update more soon!