Having Fun with My Art Shops

Since I opened some Art Shops at Zazzle and Cafe Press, I have been quite curious to see the merchandise with my paintings motifs on the items; so two weeks ago I made some coasters on my Café Press Art Shop and placed an order. I took close up crops of my funky floral paintings and had them printed on ceramic coasters. I also ordered a value t-shirt with my Nyhavn motif as a little surprise gift for Andreas. I thought since, I am paying all these shipping prices, an extra t-shirt would not break the bank…LOL.

Anyways what a surprised yesterday when the door bell range and the post woman gave me my parcel. The delivery came in a nice small box and the items were wrapped very well with lots of bubble paper. Andreas naturally, a very curious chap, ran out and was also very eager to see the merchandise. It was like Christmas morning..LOL. So when I opened the box the bag was on top and I knew it was the t-shirt. So I told him…here you go”I ordered you a little surprise too!” and handed him the bag. His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, it was so cute! He pulled out the t-shirt and said “Ah wow, Nyhavn for me…this looks super!” I was quite impressed with the way they printed the motif on the t-shirt. It was actually a print right in the fabric and not one of the rubbery print motifs. The colors were a bit dark for the rooftops of the buildings and the water. So I had a look at the pic I submitted and realized it is a bit dark. So I think if you want to submit art work for printing on material, I will lighten up the pictures and exaggerate some of the dark colors in Photoshop. It would be much better like that.

So now I open my coasters and I was very impressed. The floral prints were really full bleed on the coaster top and well printed and sprayed with some shiny varnish or something on top. The only thing that was off, is that some of the dark flowers (violet purple and dark hot pink) did not print as well as the lighter color florals. We could not see the variations in hues. But hey, they are not bad at all, and for the price you really can’t complain. And as Andreas said, I am the artist and I know the original work and I am far too picky…LOL. He thought they were just great! So, I must say we were both quite impressed and it was so fun to see my art work on the items. I am also very pleased with the coaster quality too: Heavy weight ceramic with some little felt cushions underneath not to scratch the surface. The t-shirt quality for 8.95$ was good too. But next time we will order some better quality cotton – made in the USA.

Now, Andreas wants to order a Sydney t-shirt and another Nyhavn shirt for his mom but this time from Zazzle…So I will keep you posted on the results!

So here are some pics of the coasters and t-shirt. I know some of you have some great art shops and will be curious to see the results: