So Much Going On!

I'm so excited that the price changer on CafePress is fixed! I'm on a roll with new designs and hopefully I can manage a bunch more before the holiday rush!

This next design, I think I'm gonna buy for my daughter Hailey in the form of a Toddler Tee. It reads My Mommy Says I'm Messy. I Say I'm Artistic! It comes in five different colors - pink, blue, green, purple and orange. I can of course add more if you'd like it in a different color. It's super cute and features a messy splat in the background.





I have seen this joke time and time again and just had to have a shirt for it. I wanted it to encompass all military because I believe all military is equally important (and should be equally loved and supported). The shirt reads I Love Messing With Government Property. Proud Military Supporter. It features text in both light green and light grey. It makes a great shirt for anyone in your family, no matter what military branch you support!






With my husband going through the Medical Board process, I will soon no longer be an Army wife. It's bittersweet really. But, once an Army wife - ALWAYS an Army wife, as they say. So, I made this shirt! I'll probably make different versions of it later, but for now this design feature bright pink (almost neon) text with the Army star symbol in the corner. It's both vibrant and fresh! Check out the Retired Army Wife shirt and gifts!

Labels: advertising, army, cafe press, cafepress, clothes, family, funny, gifts, kids, military, parenting, shopping, stores

Booty Bay Bait and Tackle World of Warcraft Shirt!

This design is fueled by my husband's love of fishing on World of Warcraft. He drives me absolutely insane with it and fusses at me to level my fishing (and I think fishing is so boring lol).

He loves fishing on the game so much, that he had to have the special fishing chair so he could sit in it and fish on the game. He fishes all the dang time. Every Sunday, he has to participate in the fishing tournament in Booty Bay. He's 512 fishing with all of his specialized fishing gear on. Yes.. he's obsessed!

I like this shirt. The little fish is cute! I especially like it on the shirt type shown to the right. I think it flows well with the color. It's offered on all of the shirts and many of the gifts like tote bags, magnets, buttons, mini buttons, tile coasters and much more. Definitely check it out HERE!

Labels: bait, cafe press, cafepress, clothes, fishing, shopping, stores, tackle, women, world of warcraft

Back In Business!

The CafePress gods have finally smiled upon us and the Store wide Price changer is FINALLY fixed. It's a little wonky, but as long as it works..I'm THRILLED! I cannot believe how long it took them to fix it. I've been waiting since September 13th! Argh! I can finally start adding to the store again. It just wasn't worth it to do all of that dang work and none of the prices be right.

In light of things finally being fixed, I'm doing some hard core promoting of BOTH stores.

www.kimiskustoms.com
Kimi's Kustoms Family Store
Kimi's Kustoms Adult Store

Here are the cut off dates for ordering your Halloween stuff!


Be sure to check out our great selection of Halloween shirts and especially our tote bags - perfect for your first time trick or treaters!

Labels: advertising, cafe press, cafepress, clothes, commission junction, costumes, first halloween, halloween, holidays, kids, Kimi, marketing, money, Online, shirts, shopping, stores

Christmas Is Coming!

Can you believe that there are less than 100 days until Christmas!? Geez. This year will mark my daughter's real "first". I mean.. she was SO little last year (she was less than a month old). I doubt she'll get really, really into it, but I'm sure once all of her gifts are open, she'll have a blast!

We're supposed to go up to Connecticut for Christmas to spend it with my husband's family. We couldn't last year - Hailey was so small and Joe was working a weird schedule that couldn't allow for more time off from work (especially after taking 3 weeks paternity leave for the birth of Hailey). We spent it with my parents instead.

Unfortunately, this will be the first time anyone in Joe's family actually gets to see Hailey (aside from Joe's mom, dad and step dad). She'll already be over a year old by then. That makes me sad. Joe's family deserves to get to see her, but it's just impossible to get up there any sooner (although Joe joked about going up there while he's on compensation leave from his ankle surgery.. but I really don't think that's a good idea lol).

I'm really looking forward to going tho. I could use the vacation. I know, I know.. I don't really work - at least not outside of the home. But it's nice to get out and go out of town and have fun for a little while. Plus, I'm totally excited to see SNOW! Oh boy.. do I ever miss snow! And I can't wait to toss Hailey in it and watch her make baby snow angels!

We have so much to buy before our trip there - mostly winter clothes for Hailey and for myself. But we also are wanting to buy one of those storage bin things for the top of our car. I'm sure Hailey will get lots of gifts being the baby of the family (actually..she's the last Tewksbury [as of now anyways lol] so she's definitely the baby!). I know we'll probably stay at least a week, so that's a lot of clothes for the three of us to pack, plus Hailey's toys, bathroom essentials, pack n' play and the like. We have a Subaru Impreza - the hatchback version, and I just don't know how we're going to fit it all! So we definitely need one of those storage bin thingies!

I have no idea what to get her for Christmas. I know she'll get lots of toys from Joe's family... and that's a pretty darn big family. lol So, I know I can't go too overboard because she's already going to end up with enough to play with. lol As silly as it sounds, I'm definitely buying her a few shirts from my own store that I have made up for her. Clothes make a good gift anyways! lol I know I'm getting her the Definitely Nice shirt from my store. I LOVE it and might get myself the Definitely Naughty one to "match". I think that would be so cute!

Speaking of Christmas...

I had intended to write a sort of Family Christmas Letter and send it along with a Christmas card. I suppose we still could for family we may not see this year. But, I know the majority of Joe's family will be around come Christmas so it seems almost redundant since I really could just sit and talk to them. I'm still going to give cards of course. I'd love to buy everyone something, but I don't think I could afford it. :( Bleh.. Maybe I'll just write the letter and everyone can read it anyways, so I don't have to tell the same year long story 100 times! HaHa!

Well, get your lists ready folks. Christmas is coming up FAST! Living on a pretty strict budget, it's something I need to think about and plan for now while I still can!

Labels: cafe press, cafepress, christmas, clothes, family, holidays, kids, money, shirts, shopping, winter

Removed The CBox

I removed the CBox. The drama is absolutely ridiculous and far from warranted. I don't even know the woman who was posting the derogatory comments. I had never been to her store prior to her little messages. I'm not sure what she thinks I did to her, nor do I really care since I obviously don't know her or have anything to do with her.

If someone has an issue with my store, my email is up for grabs. Go for it. You can spam my email box all day if you'd like. I'd much rather a person do that than go to the length of even trying to IMPERSONATE me in my own store and make snotty comments using the name "Kimi" to try to make me look bad.

Grow up.. seriously. I am 22 years old and far, far from the high school setting. I'm a wife and mother...not some 15 year old girl who stole your boyfriend. I run a business - one that I take seriously and to heart. I'm in no way looking to compete with anyone. I stick to my store, I do my own thing and I make good sales.

There are only TWO military shirts I have ever sold from my store. One of them is seen in the gallery, the other is a shirt no one else in the marketplace has. I know this for a fact. And if anyone has it now, it's because they copied me. Do I care? Not really. I hope they sell just as many of them as I do. My store is far more than military, yet it's the military niche stores that have such an issue with me. Maybe if y'all spent less time digging through each other's stores to see who has what and what might be a knock off of your own stuff, you'd have more time to devote to making new stuff and you might sell more.

I've learned that having a CafePress store doesn't mean competing with other shops. It doesn't mean that at all. It's about marketing and getting your name and brand out there. That's the key to this sort of business. So spend more time worrying about yourselves and less time worrying about what I'm doing today. And stop coming to my store every hour...I have 3 different traffic meters and I see you digging around constantly. Get over yourself.

Labels: adult, army, blogging, cafe press, cafepress, funny, Kimi, military, shirts, shopping, stores

New Store: Kimi's Kustoms - ADULT

How bizarre that I haven't really announced this "officially" yet, and already people are flocking to our new store - Kimi's Kustoms - ADULT

I know what you're thinking... "But Kimi, I thought you weren't going to open that until next year?" Well, I wasn't. But through some poking, prodding, encouragement and some down right begging, I finally caved and said "Oh well..why not?" So, the adult store is open and has gained popularity through very little work.

But what I can't figure out is how search engines have it indexed already. I mean, that usually takes at least a few days, if not longer. I did upload my items to Froogle, but I don't know how people are finding my store so easily. I thought I was looking at the wrong traffic report, but I triple checked (I thought I was losing my mind) and I'm not.

Either way, I'm excited for this stores overnight popularity (wouldn't it have been funny if I managed a sale already? lol). It was much easier to set up than Kimi's Kustoms - FAMILY. Maybe it was because I had a very specific niche in mind that took me ages to figure out with the Family store. Or maybe it's simply because I know what I'm doing this time.

My next step is to somehow integrate the new store into my stand alone site www.kimiskustoms.com although how, I'm not real sure yet. I went in last night and at least linked the two stores together as sister sites, but the main website and blog both need some sort of integrated look. I'm thinking of making a Shop Family / Shop Adult button for my website. I dunno.. we'll see. It'll happen today - and that's all I know!

Labels: adult, advertising, affiliates, cafe press, cafepress, clothes, funny, gifts, goals, kids, life, marketing, money, shopping, stores

Darn Store Price Changer!

For the past two days, the feature on CafePress that lets a shop keeper change their prices store wide, has been broken. This is driving me bonkers. I know they are working on it, but it doesn't look good on my end.

My prices haven't been "sticking" for a week or so now. Instead, I've been putting in the new designs and products and simply hiding the sections until I got the prices fixed - by using the store wide price changer. With that broken, I now have a bunch of hidden sections in my store because the prices are all wrong and it would take me years to change all of that to the correct prices. Bleh.

So now, it seems like I haven't added anything new in the past few days - when I really have. I usually add new stuff every week..at least one new design. I'm trying to finish gearing up for Christmas and have several designs just sitting and waiting to be put on my virtual shelves. And waiting is costing me time..and money. Poo on you CafePress store wide changer thingy ma bob! lol

Labels: blogging, cafe press, cafepress, christmas, commission junction, goals, google, holidays, kids, marketing, money, Online, search engine optimization, shirts, shopping

Cafe Press Community Forums

In my short time at CafePress (well, short in comparison to many shop keepers), I've learned a few things exceptionally vital to running and maintaining an online store.

One of the most important things was to really listen to the veteran shop keepers, read the community forums and keep an open mind to changing things to make them work best for your potential customers. I've done all of this, and it has helped me so much and is honestly the secret to my success thus far. But, is there a time when you need to simply walk away for a while and do your own thing?

I wonder this, because being apart of the community seems to leave you open for criticism you didn't ask for. It's one thing to go in the New Design / Shop Feedback forum and ask for it.. but to be given it on a near daily basis gets old. Being told that you aren't doing something "right" or another shop keeper telling you that a design would "look so much better if you did..." just gets old. Well maybe my customers prefer it my way...and in any case, I'm not selling it to you anyways.

Another issue I've come across is that half of the community is extremely nosey. I've never really had the desire to check up on other shops to see what they had or what they may be doing. I don't have that kind of time! My time is better spent making new designs and getting them up in my store. But yet, every day when I check my counters for traffic, a good portion of my visits come directly from the Cafe Press Community Forums. Why? I mean, I understand affiliates looking for stuff...and I can usually tell it's affiliates by what pages they looked at. But why all those other people?

Yet another issue in direct link to the forums are shop keepers desperate to find another shopkeeper with a similar design so they can get upset. I've seen it far too many times. One week, I had complaints about a pink journal with the word "LOVE" and dog tags on it. This week, it's my Dare to be Different shirt with the penguins on it. Come on! Give it a break people. Six billion people in this world.. more than one is bound to run across the same idea at some point. If the colors, pictures and everything about it physically are different and only the concept remains, then why get upset over it!? Other shop keepers have stuff recently made that looks like mine and I really don't care! I'm more worried about what I am doing...

I've also seen quite a few shop owners get upset over customer criticism. Um..they are purchasing stuff from you. If they don't like your stuff or it comes out badly, they have the right to their opinions and can say so. If someone likes Shop Owner A's shirt better than Shop Owner B's shirt, then oh well. Better luck next time!

Now don't get me wrong.. I've really enjoyed the forums for the most part. There are some very nice people there with tons of useful information! It's been a great place to chat with people who have common goals and interests. But I wonder if there is a time when you need to simply walk away for a while and do your own thing and be original - maybe offer up something that not every single shop has done 101 times over.

Labels: cafe press, cafepress, clothes, crabby, gifts, goals, marketing, shopping

Happy Birthday To Me

Okay, so my birthday isn't actually until tomorrow, but here's my birthday present anyways! It's SO pretty! It's pink and white sapphires set in a white gold heart. I love it! :)

Labels: birthday, gifts, Kimi, shopping

Deployment Inspired Maternity Clothes!

This design has been by far, my most popular sell (which is rather ironic, since we are not necessarily a Military niche store). I sell this item at least once a week, if not more often. And even if it weren't my most popular, I'm pretty sure it would be my favorite anyways! I'm sure you all will enjoy them as well! Buy them for yourself, a friend or a family member!

Since that design has been so popular, I decided it was time to branch out and include Korea, Rest & Relaxation as well as general Deployment. As usual, you can get these designs on many different shirt styles...these are just for show! Each comes in three colors - pink, blue and green. You can buy it to match your child's gender or just your preference. Click on the pictures below to be taken to a page to choose a color, then view all of the shirts featuring this design!

Labels: army, cafe press, clothes, deployment, iraq, korea, matenity, military, rest and relaxation, shirts, shopping, women

Google Is Starting To Like Us!

Thanks to some halfway decent search engine optimization on my part, and some excellent website crawling by the beloved Google, the store has finally climbed up in the search ranks! This excites me! I finally feel like I did something right and that my hard work is starting to pay off.

This makes me REALLY excited for the coming months when the holiday sales begin to pick up, and shoppers go out in search of that perfect gift for the person who has everything. Let's face it.. the person who has everything, probably doesn't have one of my shirts yet!

I'd like to thank the viewers who have been searching for World of Warcraft shirts recently. You brought this wonderful news to my attention (well, you and Google Analytics). This inspires me to create more WoW inspired designs!

world of warcraft baby onesies and shirts
wow epic cloth shirt

Those two searches have helped bring us to the top of the lists! And we're excited to be there! Help keep us there by telling your friends and family about us! Blog about us..write emails, tell people on MySpace..anything you can! We'll be forever grateful! :)

Labels: cafe press, clothes, gamers, google, marketing, search engine optimization, shirts, shopping, stores, world of warcraft

Best CafePress Shop?

Do you like our designs, but maybe can't afford to buy anything and support us? Are you looking for a way to help out, and don't know how? That's GREAT, and I have the solution(s) for you!

Here is a list of possible ways to help promote Kimi's Kustoms:

1. Post a link to our website (http://www.kimiskustoms.com) or our store (http://www.cafepress.com/kimiskustoms) on your personal website. You can use Squidoo, LiveJournal, Blogger, MySpace, your own website and more! *Note that when using MySpace, you must use http://www.kimiskustoms.com and you do so at your own risk. Please read the MySpace Terms of Use for more details on advertising.*

2. You can simply post a banner with our store URL on it! You can create your own, or you can use our newest banner. *Please do not hot link! Save it to your computer and host it yourself so that everyone can enjoy the use of the banner!


3. Purchase a Kimi's Kustoms Bumper Sticker for your car!

4. Blog about us! You can include us in any of your blogs. You can even link your favorite designs / products to show off to your friends!

5. Email your family and friends about us!

6. Vote for us Every Day at the following sites:





TopSiteList


Free TopSite

7. Check out our Affiliates page in order to learn how to make money supporting our store!

Labels: advertising, affiliates, bumper sticker, cafe press, cafepress, clothes, commission junction, family, marketing, money, rewards, shopping, squidoo

Squidoo.com

I've been a hardcore blogger for about three years now. I love writing everything down, but cannot stand actually writing! My blogs are all mushed together about different subjects in my life. I usually write about me, my daughter, my husband or my store..so they are all pretty personalized, instead of the whole blog sticking to one subject (What can I say? I'm a diverse person!)

It didn't take long being a CafePress shopkeeper to find out about Squidoo Lenses. It's sort of like a blog, but each topic is called a Lens. In each Lens, you generally talk about one thing (although I suppose you could treat it like a blog if you really wanted to). On top of discussing a subject or telling a story, you can use different modules / widgets to sell items from places like CafePress, EBay, Amazon, etc. And the best part? You can get PAID doing this! How awesome is that!?

I wish I had more time to devote to them. I have a few at the moment and will be writing many more of them. My most popular Squidoo Lens right now is the one I wrote about getting my nipples pierced. Yes, you read that right! You can check that one out here if you are interested Squidoo Lens: Nipple Piercings. Don't open with little eyes around (especially little eyes that can read).

Interested in making a Lens of your own? Great! You can sign up here: Join Squidoo! I promise it's worth your time, and it's fun!

If you would like to check out all of our Lenses, you can go here: Kimi's Kustoms Squidoo Lenses. If you sign up and check these out, please be sure to leave us some comments on your favorite Lenses, and throw us some rating stars! We hope you come to love Squidoo as much as we do!

Labels: advertising, cafe press, cafepress, family, marketing, money, shopping, squidoo, stores

Christmas Cards!

Wow.. can you believe we're gearing up for Christmas already!? Well, I have to start now, or other stores are going to leave me in the dust this holiday season! As of today, there are only 108 days until Christmas! Yikes!

I've slowly been adding Christmas cards to the store. You can find them here in the Winter Cards Section. We don't just have Christmas - we have Hanukkah and even some more general winter cards as well! Here are some of my favorites!

Labels: cafe press, cafepress, christmas, family, gifts, holidays, shopping, stores, Uncategorized, winter

Bumper Sticker

I'm always looking for another way to advertise my store. There seem to be only so many ways to do so without spamming. Another shopkeeper on the CafePress forums, suggested a bumper sticker. I mean, that's what they are for right? My husband isn't real into the idea. I don't think he wants my website URL all over his car. Well, tough noogies. lol

I made a bumper sticker tonight - finally. I like it, and am anxious to get it in the mail. I've yet to order anything from myself, so this will be a learning experience for me. If it looks as good in print as it does on my computer, I'm thinking of buying a few for family members and seeing if I can convince them to stick it on their cars. Heehee

Anywhoooo if anyone reading this is interested, the bumper sticker can be found Here!

Labels: advertising, affiliates, bumper sticker, cafe press, cafepress, commission junction, marketing, shopping

Stand Alone Site - Completed!

Finally, after hours upon hours of hard work, I have completed the stand alone site www.kimiskustoms.com! It was an amazing amount of work. I've never done a full website before and I have to say, all of the FTP, SQL, SOB, SHOL, Blah Blah Blah was incredibly confusing for me. I've never gone to school for this sort of thing so the acronyms and terminology really threw me off. Like my friend Chris says, nerds like to use big words and flashy acronyms to look cool and smart. Well, they certainly got me stumped for a while.

It feels really good to have all of it done, and I think it looks pretty nice. I tried to incorporate the design into both the store and the stand alone site so people don't even realize they are going from one place to another. I think it flows well. Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter. We'll have to see what the customers (and Google!) think of it. Ha!

Labels: affiliates, cafe press, cafepress, commission junction, shopping, stores

My Favorite Halloween Shirts!

With Halloween coming up soon, I've put together my favorite Halloween T-Shirts and Gifts from some of my favorite CafePress stores. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Click on any picture below to check out that design on many different products!

Labels: first halloween, gifts, halloween, princess, shirts, shopping, skull

Store Affiliates

I'm super excited to see how many other CafePress stores are suddenly linking my products. I use Google Analytics and have been noticing a little more traffic lately. Upon digging through my reports, I notice that there are a few stores linking to my stuff (BIG stores, who I never thought would use my designs for affiliate linking). I'm not sure why they chose me, but that's great! I hope we both make money off of it. :)

If you are interested in become a Kimi's Kustoms Affiliate, follow these steps!

Directions:

1. Bookmark Kimi's Kustoms so you can find your way back easily.

2. Follow this link and review the agreement terms --> Publisher Sign Up.

3. Fill Out the online application.

4. Wait for Commission Junction to send you a confirmation email.

5. Head to www.cj.com and log in (the log in area is to you top right.

6. Click on "Account" then "Web site Settings" and copy your PID number for your website. (it will be located beneath "name")

7. If there are no listed websites, click 'Add A New Web Site', fill out the information for the site that will be displaying the banner advertising (such as your personal website). A New PID number will be issued to you. Once you retreive the PID number write it down somwhere some you won't lose it.

8. Come back to Kimi's Kustoms and select your favorite banner to place wherever you'd like where advertising is allowed! Note: Replace the “XXXXXXX” with your pid number.

9. Enjoy your commission!

Choose a Banner Style:




<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-XXXXXXX-10463747url=http://www.cafepress.com/kimiskustoms"><img src="http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w199/MrsKimiT/KimiKustoms/KKVertBanner.gif" border="0"><br> </a>





<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-XXXXXXX-10463747url=http://www.cafepress.com/kimiskustoms"><img src="http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w199/MrsKimiT/KimiKustoms/KimiKustomsBlueBanner1.gif" border="0"><br> </a>

Labels: affiliates, cafe press, commission junction, shopping, stores