I know that the kids just went back to school (or are going back to school on Tuesday). I was reading the Instructables blog - their office was attacked by Zombies which reminded me remind that Halloween is just around the corner.

Yes, techincally Halloween is October 31st but in t-shirt world we get to start much earlier, we need to design them, add them to our shops, and order shirts in time to wear them to multiple Halloween parties.

Just a little reminder to start thinking about pumpkins, candy corn, ghosts and goblins. While you are thinking you can enter the Instructables caption this Zombie Photo contest here. Continue reading ‘Zombie Attack = Halloween is Near’

I just wanted to take a minute to show off some of the fabulous prizes that we have to give away for the T-Summer Games 08.

The competition is easy - just submit your designs and add the tag summer08 - click here for the details and official rules.

Now for the prizes!  If you haven’t entered yet - what are you waiting for?

Best Grabbed Design - iPod Touch 8 GB

Best Rated Design - Samsung NV24 HD Digital Camera

Top Selling Design - Wacom intuos3 A4 Tablet

Last week we announced the first ever Spreadshirt T-Summer Games, what can we say, we were excited by all of the competitions to watch this summer. I just wanted to remind everyone that the games have begun!

From now until August 25, 2008 upload your designs on the Marketplace or in your Confomat with the tag “Sport08”.

• Click here to see the blog post about T-summer games
• Click here for the official T-Summer Games Website - all of the rules and the prize are here

I learned about this little contest from the PA League of Young Voters new blog and it seemed like it would be a good fit for anyone who has been designing some t-shirts around election day or as we like to call it “Spreading the Vote.”

VoteHipHop.org is looking for people to talk about “why hip-hop is important to any political change, and what issues are important to you and your community.” T-shirt designs are accepted as entries to this contest!

So just get to designing a shirt for your shop (or the marketplace) and head on over to VoteHipHop.org and enter your submission. You have to be between the age of 18-30.

Prizes:

One winner will be chosen from each category. Winners each get $500, a free trip to a nationally televised awards ceremony, get featured on The Nation Magazine online, WireTap Magazine, Future5000.com and dozens of other syndicated websites.

The Judges Include:

• Talib Kweli - a rapper and poet
• Jamilah King - editor of WiretapMag.org
• Adriel Luis - Founder of iLL-Literacy
• Favianna Rodriguez - Co-founder of EastSide Arts
• Monifa Akinwole Bandele - Executive Director of Change the Game

Some compete in sports - we are inviting all of our shop partners to compete in the T-Summer Games 08.

Sports and summer are two very t-shirt hungry competitors. Our T-Summer Games 08 is their arena where the apparel world comes together to contend for recognition, respect and the ultimate prizes. There are three areas of competition open to all: Best Grabbed Design, Best Rated Design and Top Selling Design. Enter your summer and sports related designs to go up against the best of them and win big!

The competition runs from August 18th to August 25th.

I am going to start with the prizes because they are as good as gold! -  Ipod touch 8GB, Samsung NV24HD Digital Camera, Wacom intuous3 A4 Tablet, Premium Shop Upgrades and some Zexis T-shirt Books.

Calendar of Events

• August 12, 2008 -August 17, 2008 - Training
  • learn the rules, get to work on summer and sport designs
• August 18, 2008 - August 25, 2008 - Competition
  • This is where it counts! Upload your designs on the Marketplace or in your Confomat with the tag “Sport08”.
• August 26, 2008 - September 5th, 2008 - Judging
  • Selection and publication of the winners by Spreadshirt

The Events - we have 3 categories in the T-Summer Games

• Best Grabbed Design
  • The winner of this category is the design which is grabbed by the most shop partners during the competition and integrated into their shop (either through the marketplace or the Confomat in the user area) as of August 25th.
• Best Rated Design
  • The winner of this category is the design which has the best rating in the marketplace as of August 25th.
• Top Selling Design
  • The winner of this category is the design which was sold the most during the competition (August 18th to August 25th).

Rules - we have those too!  Click here to visit the T-Summer Games 2008 page and get all the details! 

One of the things we started talking about at Spreadshirt last year is passion because people often order t-shirts for things they are passionate about.  At first I thought - I am not that passionate about anything that I would order a t-shirt - but over the past year I have discovered a few things that I am really passionate about.  One of those things is Wordpress - the more I talk about blogging - I always recommend Wordpress as a blogging platform - mostly because Wordpress has made it very easy for me to share info about Pittsburgh and t-shirts.

Another thing that I have become very passionate about is This American Life.  This American Life is a weekly radio program on NPR, each week they offer 60 minutes of stories about all sorts of interesting things.  I started listening a little over a year ago and I have become a huge fan.  Listening to This American Life has helped me to see the value of story telling and I have come to look at blogging as a way pf telling an ongoing story.  My first blog, IheartPGH, is an ongoing story about Pittsburgh.  This blog is an ongoing, sometime rambling, sometimes silly story about things happening at Spreadshirt.

I live about 45 minutes away from the Spreadshirt production facility - while I am not the biggest fan of driving - I secretly enjoy the trip because it gives me the opportunity to listen to an episode of  This American Life.  I even went to see the live season premier of the This American Life tv show.  Both Wordpress and This American Life are things that I would like to have on a t-shirt (or tote bag - I am really big on tote bags).  So I am super super excited about the This American Life t-shirt contest.   I have had a few good t-shirt ideas in my head for some This American Life t-shirts.  The winning design will be the thank you gift for the next pledge drive and the winner gets $1000.  Check out the rules here - you can submit up to 3 designs.  If your design isn’t the winning design - I would still like to see it because I will probably want to order at least 1 of every This American Life design I can get my hands on.

International T-shirt Day (click here to see the details) is almost here and we need your help to get the word out. Write about T-shirt day on your blog, link to t-shirtday.com and add the tag tshirtday08. We have got a nice group of prizes that you can win:

• the brand new Zeixs book on t-shirt design
• laFraise vouchers
• Samsung NV24D Digital Camera - for the best blog post

Tobias from SpreadshirtUK has put together some ideas for what you can blog about that might be good topics for your blog but feel free to write about anything t-shirts.

• ask your readers to take pictures of themselves in their favourite t-shirt and upload their picture on FlickR using the tag “tshirtday08″ and writing a few lines on why they like that shirt so much (they will receive a 2o GBP coupon for that)
• make suggestions how to/where to celebrate the t-shirt day in a very personal way

I ocassionally check out some of the social shopping sites where you can save your favorite products with your friends and the other users, write reviews and create wish lists.  I think this could be a good way to share some of the products in your shop with others who may be interested.

One of the social shopping sites that I like is ThisNext.  It is very easy to add your products - upload a pictures and link and add some tags.  For the next 2 weeks when you add a product and tag it with “SpringDesign” you could win all sorts of cool spring prizes from ThisNext.  More details here.

How to Enter

• 1 - Recommend your favorite products for spring.
• 2 - Tag your recommendations “SpringDesign”.
• 3 -Enter multiple times to increase your chance of winning.

So stop by ThisNext and share some of your best spring products with other social shoppers and you could win.  Please leave a comment here or send me an email (lpa-at-spreadshirt.com) and I will feature some of your products from ThisNext here on the Spreadshirt blog too.

Those crazy kids at Instructables are at it again with a great contest - T-shirt Hacks.  Transform your t-shirt into something cool and share the steps.  Enter your t-shirt hack and you could win a prize.  We are big fans of using t-shirts for all sorts of purposes (see some past blog posts here).

The requirements are pretty simple: modify a t-shirt in a creative way to give it a new look. You can use more than one shirt or add anything you like, but the result should still be wearable. Put the instructions and pictures in an Instructable in the T-Shirt Hacks speed challenge in the next couple weeks and you’re good to go!

You can submit your entires until April 6th, voting goes until April 10, 2007. So far there are only 32 entries - so there is a good chance of winning.  Which one is your favorite?

Blog Paradise is having a Christmas Paradise Contest. It is really easy to enter and the prize is a $45 Spreadshirt gift certificate. It is really easy to enter! Click here to get all of the details and to enter the contest.