Just under a week ago, I joined CafePress as a shopkeeper. I’d thought about doing it a few months ago, researched it and its competitors, sunk into a quagmire of indecision, and then the Olympics started. Last week, a friend of mine reminded me of CafePress, and I started up the shop.
It’s been an adventure figuring out the image requirements, how to use the templates, which photopaint software is the best one to use (still working on that one), discovering the plethora of products to create images for, and playing with which images work best on which products. I’m finally starting to feel like I know what I’m doing, and it’s getting rather addictive adding new products. And unlike writing, it’s a totally different and less effort-full thinking process. Populating my CafePress shop provides a nice break from writing and thinking about writing (half of writing is thinking, mulling, pondering ideas), yet it still makes me feel productive, so important after too many years of rehab being my “job.”
I started my shop with a bunch of dark T-shirts, added on Christmas greeting cards — my favourite is the beach photo with the dog in Lake Ontario. The kicker is that it’s February, there’s a thick dock of ice along the shoreline that I watched the dog carefully navigate when deciding where he’d enter the water, and his equally slow-moving human companion is standing on the snow-covered sand wrapped up in toque and winter coat. But I digress. CafePress helped me get my Flip Mino loaded into my shop. I have a CN Tower journal, and just added a variety of mugs. I’m currently mulling over which photo to use on the throw pillow. I’m leaning towards one of my zoo shots, but don’t think the Hippo Butt shot would make for a good pillow adornment, even though it’s my favourite. My CafePress adventure continues!
