Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The possibilities are endless

In late Sept Spouse & I will be attending our 1st car show where Big Ella will be entered and judged.

I don't care a single bit about the judging part. We've attended this car show before as spectators and to me, that's what its all about: seeing and appreciating these gorgeous pieces of drivable art.

But in order to show your car to car club members and the public at the show, you have to enter your car, and as long as it is entered, it will be judged by the other car club members. Trophies will be given out in several categories, but as I said, I don't care about that part at all.

The car show will be on a Sat, but the car club is having member activities on Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun. I thought it would be fun to have some auto-inspired shirts to wear to some of these activities, so I went online (of course) and found this website that allows you to create your own customized gear (mugs, mouse pads, clothing, umbrellas, you name it). You can type in text or upload photos to appear on your items, and the prices were not as high as I expected for this level of customization.

So I created 2 t-shirts to wear on 2 of the 4 days of the event: this one is obviously a variation of the 'got milk?' campaign, and this one which is an actual photo I took of Big Ella. See? Here's my photo:

and here's the t-shirt. I ordered 1 of each t-shirt for me and for Spouse (although we'll likely wear them on opposite days since Spouse HATES it when we accidentally wear matching clothes), and can hardly wait for them to arrive!

Another cool thing about this site is that you can allow the site to list your custom created items for sale to others. So someone else who loves tail fins like me can search "tail fins", see my 'got fins?' t-shirt, and buy it, and the site will give me credit toward future purchases. You can also create your own virtual 'store' of customized products for other enthusiasts to buy. I mean, if you're a creative person you could literally create hundreds of funny or themed items for your virtual 'store' and possibly earn enough credit to shop on the site for free. I think that's pretty cool!

My mind has been reeling ever since with all kinds of funny and/or poignant sayings and slogans I could put on t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.

You can create a one-of-a-kind gift for the person who has everything: a coffee mug with "ABBA rules!" on it.

Think of how fun it would be to have customized apparel to wear to family reunions: "Phucker Phamily Reunion", milestone anniversary celebrations: "Dominic & Antoinette's 50th wedding anniversary", and milestone birthday parties: "Steve Collins is really, really old". You can really make a statement at a GLBT equality march by having all your friends show up in the same t-shirt with a tag line: "Equal rights, not special rights".

Really, the possibilities are endless!

Crush du Jour: Owen Hawk

5 comments:

Joy said...

That is a good idea. I've been looking for a t-shirt that I saw years ago, so now I can make one!

You can also wear your "got fins" shirt to Sea World.

Anonymous said...

If I ever find a decent job again I want to start a silk screening thing up. I did some when I worked at a local manufacturer and it's super easy to do.

BTW, love those fins. My dad had a brand new 1968 Coupe De Ville and the fins were disappearing by then.

Stephen said...

This is the first I have seen of Big Ella & she is beautiful. My father collects vintage car. He has 3 Model As & 44 Dodge hot rod. He gave me a 1959 T-Bird when I graduated high school & is still mad at me that I sold it 5 years later to move to NYC. Thanks for sharing.

Rick said...

My father would love to go to the car show. Too bad we aren't closer.That's a great idea on the shirts. I'm sure you will look as good as Mr. Hawk in yours. Have a great time and good luck with Big Ella.

Kyle Leach said...

Big Ella is lovely. I'm glad your taking her to a show where she can be appreciated.