That's All Folks...

Over the last few months we have had to make a hard decision in the Tomb with regards to +Dead With Tequila. After a lot of thought and consideration, copious amounts of coffee and chocolate, We have made the decision to close the store on Storenvy.

There have recently been some changes at Storenvy, that if I'm being completely honest, don't sit very well with R and myself, and we now feel that it's time we moved on. Dead With Tequila has been on Storenvy for nearly two and a half years now, so this was not a decision that was made lightly. Within the last couple of months, Storenvy have introduced what they are calling a "Storenvy Fee". This is a fee payed by YOU, the customer, basically for shopping on the platform. We already pay commission on the marketplace sales (this comes out of our profits) and we are fine with that. In theory that commission is because it is a sale that the platform has generated for us and it goes back into things tech support for the sellers, customer service, keeping the platform running. But with this new Fee, on marketplace sales they get the commission WE pay and the Fee that YOU pay. YOU still pay this Fee even if we have generated the sale ourselves through our own marketing in our own store. We don't feel that is fair that you should have to pay a fee because you chose to shop there over anywhere else.  

Now, just because we are not happy with this fee doesn't mean we don't understand why it has been brought in. This Fee is also suppose to go towards improving the customer service and all the other things that I mentioned before, and that's not a bad thing. In fact that's a great thing! The platform should develop and grow, and hopefully by doing so, improve. However they never actually told the sellers that they planned to implement this. We only got an email after some (understandably) angry people took to the Facebook group asking questions and demanding answers. The answers we were given didn't really address peoples concerns and still nobody seems to know exactly what is going on with it, and it's been a month.

The thing is it's not just the fee that has caused us to make this decision, although it has definitely played a key role. Storenvy is suppose to be the ideal place for "Indie" sellers. It even says so right at the top of the home page.

Okay, so it doesn't say it word for word, and this is an animation that changes. However the only bit that changes is the word "Brands". It changes to other words such  as "Artist", "Makers" and "People". As much as there are a lot of sellers that fit that description, there are also a lot of mass production companies; as in multi-million dollar companies. They have as much right to sell items as everyone else does, but in becomes an issue when these become the store that the platform pushes to the top of the listings, and repeatedly make them featured brands. (Every store as a limit of 500 products. If you become a featured brand you get space for even more listings.) What this means is the marketplace is swamped with mass produced items and small businesses that work hard to produce unique, amazing items get pushed down to the bottom of the pile and are lucky if their products show up in the first thousand pages (depending on what you search, you can have over seven thousand pages to flick through).

This is something that has been bought up by several sellers. Most wanting to voice their opinion, and others because they feel it's unfair and want the issue addressed. Basically the answer that they got was to do more marketing (I'm paraphrasing here. But when you take all the wordy filler out of the given answer this is what was said.). Indie sellers that consist of stay at home mums, and young artists, and companies that only consist of one or two people, were basically being told to do more marketing to compete with multi-million dollar businesses, who probably have a department of a couple of hundred people that focuses on just marketing, let alone having to make products, do inventory, plan sales, create ads, do the marketing, and be active across social media. I think that a lot of people started to feel as though the platform wasn't interested in it's Indie sellers anymore. There a few other small things that contributed to us deciding to close up shop here, but these are the two big reasons.

I think we have perhaps out-grown Storenvy. We stared Dead With Tequila with absolutely no idea what we were doing and no experience of the crazy world that is e-commerce. Storenvy was a great place for us to learn (and boy, was there a steep learning curve!) and figure out exactly what Dead With Tequila is suppose to be and get the vibe right. For the record, I don't think Storenvy is a bad company; I think it's great in fact. I believe that they have a lot of good ideas, and good intentions to go with, it's just their execution occasionally misses the mark. But our time here has come to an end, and we must say good bye.

So what does all this mean?

It means that Dead With Tequila is MOVING!!! As of 2017 Dead With Tequila will be joining Tomb Buddies on Tictail. In the new year items will slowly disappear from the Storenvy store and materialize on the new Tictail store.

The majority of items will make it to their new home, but some wont be so lucky. We decided that we need a bit of a tidy up of the stock. So we might do a clearance sale, or some giveaways we're not sure yet. With this move comes a new look for Dead With Tequila. A more simple look. I think after nearly two and a half years, I have finally nailed down the colour scheme. So there'll be a new store that will look completely different from the Storenvy one, and the blog will therefore get a makeover to match. I've already started work on these and so far I'm really happy with it all. It looks amazing!

This move should also open up more opportunities for us, and allow us to expand and develop the way that we want to with out so many restrictions. The store is completely customizable, the discounts options are more versatile, there are more category options in the marketplace and a good focus on the small business/indie sellers and no product limit.

R and myself are excited about the future of Dead With Tequila and hope you will continue to follow us no matter where we end up with this. There are a lot of exciting things to come, and we can't wait to share them with you. It's a whole new beginning...



Congratulations! You made it to the end of what my be my longest post ever! As per usual, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below, find me on Twitter, send a carrier pigeon with your message, or perhaps a flying monkey, unicorn or even a magic carpet.

The Animals Went In 2 By 2...

So I have been squirreling away in the Tomb, plotting and planning, working on my cartoon project. I feel like this is a good time to share a bit and let you in on some secrets, and even have some input.

I can confirm:

• It will be called Tomb Buddies (if you want to get pedantic, Tomb Buddies From Dead With Tequila. But that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) 
• There are 9 characters.- Hank the Rhino, Milo the Rabbit, Bert the Bear, Giovanni the Giraffe, Vern the Rat, Finnegan the Cat, Nelson the Elephant, Silas the Lion, and Agnes the Hippo.
• There are plans for Mugs and Cushions (exciting stuff, right?).
• Tomb Buddies will have it's own Twitter and Instagram accounts. As soon as they are up and running I'll let you know the handles for each. Tomb Buddies news and info will still be posted to the Dead With Tequila blog, Facebook page and Pinterest accounts. 
• There will be a new store opened especially for them (basically a second Dead With Tequila store).
• The new store will NOT be on Storenvy. 

The new Tomb Buddies store will be on platform called Tictail. Hands up if you have heard of Tictail before now.....No body....Yeah...Me either until I started researching other platforms that integrated with the company we use to print and drop ship our T-shirts, hoodies, posters etc. 

Here's some basic information on Tictail.

They launch in 2012 and are based in Sweden, and they also have an office in New York. Their aim is to make it easy for indie brands/small businesses (like me) to build an online store that looks great an inviting to customers.

Just like Storenvy, Paypal is available for checkout. Or it will be when the Tomb Buddies store is launched. (Interesting fact: Paypal is your only option to check out with on the Dead With Tequila store. We did have Stripe, but after hearing that a lot of other store owners had been victims of fraud, some loosing hundreds of dollars and their merchandise, when using Stripe, I disabled the account.)

Now onto the part where all of you lovely people come in...

If you know, or think of any puns, one liners/jokes that involve, either: a Rhino, a Rabbit, a Bear, a Giraffe, a Rat, a Cat, an Elephant, a Lion or a Hippo, or a combination of any of them, (if you have something that involves all nine animals you may just get the title of Magical Unicorn) please tweet me or Dead With Tequila or just leave them in the comments below. I would be very appreciative. In the event that I use them on a T-Shirt/mug...any other product that I feel like adding, I'm going to list them on the Dead With Tequila blog kind of like a `Wall of Fame`

Thanks in advance. :D

When The Voices Talk To Me

So I've been working away in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb lately mainly on my cartooning project that I mentioned ages ago. It come on a lot in the last few weeks, you'll be happy to hear.

Some of you may have seen this on the Dead With Tequila Instagram account (follow us @deadwithtequila) This a work in progress shot of that project. In the Tomb it has begun to be know as the Tomb Buddies collection. There will be eight characters in total: a Rhino, a Rabbit, a Bear, a Giraffe, a Rat, a Cat, an Elephant, a Lion and a Hippo. All of which have names, but you'll just have to be patient and wait and see what we have called each of them.

The reason that you can see random limbs and floating heads here is because this is essentially going to be a hybrid style of art. everything will be hand drawn, the old fashioned way, on paper and then scanned in and digitally cut out and posed to make the final designs. I have to draw each character then break them down into individual parts and then draw each part from every conceivable angel; hence the reason that things are taking so long. When it's done this will pretty much just be Posters, T-Shirts and Tote bags. I'm considering perhaps doing cushions and maybe even mugs, but I'm going to think on it some more. Cool handmade bookmarks were part of the original plan, but I still haven't quite perfected a design in my head yet, so that may or may not happen. We are talking about creating a separate store for this collection. Purely for that fact that already I have so many ideas of what I'm going to be doing with the characters, and also because we feel that as much as this continues the Day Of The Dead theme that we try and focus on in the Dead With Tequila store, we feel that it's different enough that it wouldn't necessarily fit in with the other collections. This is going to be kept really simple. Black and White, clean lines, and have an overall cute feel to it. There will also be a separate newsletter that you can sign up to, I'll give you more info on that at a later date though.

In other news, I added this to the the store earlier today. You can check it out in the store here. It's made in the USA, and ships from Los Angeles. If you didn't already know our store uses PayPal, so check out is secure.

  

Snail Mail

So we've been talking in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb about doing an email subscription newsletter thingy (If you follow me on twitter you already know this), but I was wondering what sort of things people might want to see in it. 

• Firstly if we did a newsletter would you sign up?
• We were thinking doing one either once a month or once every two months. What sounds better to you?
• We thought of announcing new items that are being launch in the store via a newsletter. At the moment if you want to receive an email when we add new items to the store you have to have either bought items from us previously or create an account on Storenvy and Watch our store and then Storenvy will send you an email. We understand that most people (ourselves included) don't want to create an account just to see new products that they may or may not intend to buy (It's like asking someone to create an Amazon account when they don't shop on Amazon) We thought that this would be a good way for people to stay in the loop without having to create any accounts that they don't want.
• As an when we do Giveaways, they would be announced here first.
• Sales would be announced here first (And maybe do sales that only subscribers will know about, just because they're awesome and deserve some special treatment :-P )

These are the ideas that we have so far. Suggestions are welcomed as are opinions on the ideas above; they can be left in the comments below you and message me on Twitter or message Dead With Tequila on Twitter (links at the top of the column on the right) failing that email you thoughts to deadwithtequila@gmail.com

Your thoughts and ideas really would be greatly appreciated. 

Also keep your eyes peeled for the Dead With Tequila Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale...details coming soon.

 

  

Tomb Trivia

HELLO!!! It feels like it's been ages since I posted any weird ramblings. I'm not going to include the book reviews that have been posted as they come via a link to Goodreads. If you're a bookworm, feel free to add me on Goodreads, I have discovered that the "Livvii's Quotes" bit on the right is a link to my profile there (who knew!?). Until recently, I was busy in the +Dead With Tequila  tomb trying to get everything done in time for us to reopen with all the awesome new stuff. But that's all done, and I've spent the last month doing all the marketing side of stuff, which always takes more time than you think. Thank you to all the awesome people that have been viewing the store and keeping us well over a thousand views a week. 

If you haven't taken a look in the store since we re-opened, then you're missing out, but you can easily fix that! (just click "Shop Dead With Tequila" in the bar at the top). If you have had a peruse at the store, what's your favourite thing? (I am genuinely interested). I'll also have you know that we are still not done with new items for the store. Yes, this does mean what you think it means; it means that there are even more new items that will eventually be coming your way. If you don't want to miss out on any new items that we add to the store, you can Watch the store and receive an email when anything new is added. You can do this by clicking "shop Dead With Tequila" and in the top right corner in the store front click "join Storenvy" then you can watch the store and never miss a thing!

Some boring  interesting facts from the Tomb:

• In making the new jewelry items so far for the re-opening we used upwards of 600 Jump Rings.
• Somewhere in the region of 2000 beads have been used on the new items so far.
• New items so far have used around 300 head pins
• The new necklaces and bracelets that have been made so far have used about 130 crimps.
• On new items alone, we used probably 150m of wax thread and 120m of organza ribbon on bracelets and necklaces.
• The new earrings made for the re-opening used up about 40m of chain.

Yes I did spend about three hours working this out. I was gonna do this really cool thing, and make some kind of infographic. R then pointed out (after I spent the 3 hours working it all out), that probably no one is going to care. I said "Well I spent three hours on this so I'm going to blog it whether anyone cares or not", R replied with "You are a silly bean."  For the record I am not a bean, but a flying donkey.

Now that the mad rush of photographing and uploading new items to Dead With Tequila is over, I really want to get back to working on my cartoon based collection that I started a while ago. Because we were trying to get everything else done before R went off to university, it got put one the back burner for a little while. The good news is, it now has a working title!!! Tomb Buddies. This may change between now and it being finished (god only know when that will be). There is  still so much to be done it's unreal, but it's going to be really cute, but keep the vibe of Dead With Tequila. It's a very monochromatic collection; very black and white. R has suggested having small hints of colour in there, but I'm not so sure. It's still early days yet, so I may change my mind on that one. Thinking about it now, they'd look great on t-shirts and bags. Of course there will be posters too. I also have a vague plan in mind about some book mark style thing with the characters, but that needs a bit of fine tuning yet. Perhaps when I've done a bit more to it all I'll share some "in progress" pics.   

I think that's everything for today. As usual, questions, comments, either below, or come find me on twitter. Failing that, carrier pigeons, magic carpets, unicorns and flying monkeys are also acceptable messenger services to be used.     

And The Count Down Begins

R and my self have been working really hard in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb lately, whether we are ready or not the, end is near. In a little over a week and a half R goes off to university, and therefore we have to have everything finished before then. In an ideal world we could do with another couple of months to finish everything off; for no other reason than at the moment we are very stressed out, regularly repeating our new mantra of  "There's not enough time, oh God there's not enough time!"  and have pretty much been working in the tomb morning, noon and night and having dreams that we are still in the Tomb working away.  Have you ever been so stressed and panicked by what you're doing that you no longer no how to do what you're meant to be doing? that's how R and my self have been for the past 3 or 4 weeks and it is horrible.

I'll stop rambling now and start telling you about some really cool stuff from the Tomb.

So we have TEN, yes 10 new collections for you: Edgar Allen Poe, Down The Rabbit Hole, Light Years Away, Dreams Of Darkness, American Dreams, Pocketful Of Posies, The Kraken, Ancient Ruins, Dia De Los Muertos and Pandaemonium.

We are getting RID of postage charges!! (Whooo!!)

We have got some amazing new necklaces. Where we now have themed collections we ave got some amazing statement charms and things that are gorgeous and we can't wait for you all to see them.

Now for the really exciting stuff!!! We have decided to branch out and offer apparel items in the Dead With Tequila store. If you follow me on Twitter or just occasionally stalk your way through my feed (I don't mind a bit of stalking :-P ) you would have seen this pic that I shared yesterday

  
This is one of our Own Brand items that will soon be available to you from the Dia De Los Muertos Collection. This is the collection that will be the home to all of the Own brand items. 

So basically we have paired with a third party company that make, print, and ship the apparel items as well as the new posters directly from Los Angeles. We have tank tops, hoodies and posters so far.

This does mean that there will be shipping costs attached to the apparel and the new posters because they are the ones that deal with the order and they are the ones that set the shipping costs not us. There will be more info on the shipping costs of these items and size guide and things put on the Dead With Tequila blog site in the FAQ section, that will explain everything so no need to worry.   

Anyways...back to work. I can't wait for you all to see what we have been working on. If you end up reading a product description or something on the Dead With Tequila blog and there are mistakes or missing info, please let me know. the problem with working on something so much is you get so used to it you stop seeing the mistakes, so I'm counting on you guys.

You know the drill questions or comments can be left below, or tweet me, or send a magic carpet, carrier pigeon, flying monkey or unicorn.  

Heads or tails?

So yesterday in the Tomb we started photographing some of the new collections. As these contain necklaces (yes we're branching out) we needed a way to display these....I came you with this....You don't really see it in the item pics but it makes me feel better knowing that it looks nice.

Here's a step by step/ in progress / stages ......whatever...Basically I took pics as I went along.

From Polystyrene to Paper Mache 

Paper Mache to white primer

Primer to drawing on a design

Designing...

...Designing

...Still designing

...Designing some more

Designing to Painting the coloured areas

...More coloured areas

...Even more coloured areas

...And even more...

...And some more just for good measure

And this is the finished item!!! Just had to do all the really fine black line detail (yay) and fill in the black areas

More detail...Why did I insist on so much detail?

More detail round the back.... A couple of people have said that it makes them think of Harlequin.....But you can make your own mind up there

...More detail again.....yes I like to make my own life hell...

And one form the top.

Hi, Just passing through

This is just a flying visit because I'm busy busy busy in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

Yes there is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the Tomb right now. We're have spent the last few weeks, especially the past two days working really hard on some awesome new stuff. 

I can confirm that within the last hour and a half we have finished the jewelry part of the Edgar Allan Poe collection!!! (does happy dance). There's some wire bracelets, elasticated bracelets, a couple of bag charms, earrings and...(drum roll please..) NECKLACES!!!!! They are totally gorgeous.. I've already finished a couple of poster designs and a tank top. Yes you read that right, a tank top...as in an item of clothing (Oooo!!) I'm working on even more designs for both t-shirts and posters and maybe even tote bags... I'm just gonna leave you to ponder that for a moment.

The Pandaemonium Collection is coming along nicely as well. Lots and lots of really bold colours paired with black. This is the next one that we are going to aim to finish. Hopefully.... we're waiting for some supplies, but they have to come from a supplier in China so are taking awhile to arrive, which is stressing R and myself out a little bit. If we don't get our stuff with in the next week or so we want to move onto the Down The Rabbit Hole collection. 

Down the Rabbit hole has some nice pieces in already. This is going to have clocks, and playing cards, and dice, some florals. It's going to be a very grown up version of the old story. The teacups are being swapped with martini and shot glasses...Make of that what you will.

The past couple of days have been really busy to say the least. We've started to make multiples of the same item (never more than 10 though) 

There's going to be some updates on how we list stuff in the store as well, but I'll tell you more about that another time..


Anyways...Loves you all, but now I have to dive back into the Tomb or maybe bed. Maybe I'll just sleep in the Tomb...Yeah, that sounds like a plan. 

Laters my lovelies.         

True Colours.

So +Dead With Tequila are considering branching out into tshirts and maybe some other stuff. So I was just curious as to what sorts of colours appeal to people.  The image below shows the colour options for the items we are considering. I'd love t know what you think.

Personally I'm leaning towards going with the Vintage Black and the Venetian Grey (potentially adding Purple Rush and Vintage Red into the mix) for the Women's tank top. Ultra Blue and Black for the hoodie. For the men's tank Black and Heather Grey.

Let me know what you think via the comments, on twitter, or by carrier pigeon.

Thanks xx     

It's Dead With Tequila's Birthday

Get 10% off in the store this Friday (July 31) with the discount code shown below!

It's a funny thing...

So a funny thing happened to me the other day. Funny (odd experience) Strange, not Funny Haha. I had logged onto +Dead With Tequila's Instagram account on my laptop just to see what had been going on, and like some posts (trying to maintain some form of a presence), and saw that a fairly big, well established design company that follows us (and us them :P) had liked some of our posts. Now you're probably thinking "Where you going with this Liv?"  and sure, people like our posts all the time so it shouldn't be so important that it deserves to have me write an entire blog post about it, right?

See this is the thing; for me and Carrie (for those that don't know, we make up the entirety of Dead With Tequila....yes, just the two of us [ear worm anyone...not sorry :P]) this really was a big deal. This was a people* who do this kinda thing, like selling art and designing PROFESSIONALLY  and they LIKE our stuff!!! It was really a moment of finally feeling like we are doing something right here, like this crazy little idea is more than just wishful thinking. Now, I'm not big on self doubt. Anyone that knows me, knows how stubborn and committed I can be. (I'm one of these people that gets tunnel vision. I get an idea in mind, and the rest of the world revolves around that idea until I feel as though I have achieved it to my own, astronomically high, satisfactory level.) I don't think I had realised, until then, that somewhere down in the deep, dark swirling abyss of my mind, that that irritating little voice had been whispering "What if your wasting your time?", "Maybe this isn't going to work out after all?", "What kind of idiot tries to build a brand with no money behind it?"  Well that Idiot would be me. Because, you know, I'm stubborn and lacking any ability to walk away from the challenge and give up.

This was a very weird feeling for me. I've never been someone that needs other people's opinions and approval to feel validated; I'm perfectly happy being a freak. May be it's because Carrie's in this with me? It's always easier to walk away from something when you're not letting anyone else down. I remember Carrie and I talking in her kitchen late one December night, when Dead With Tequila was still in it's developmental stages, and saying that this [Dead With Tequila] failing isn't an option. This is taken slightly out of context here. There was a rather long list of reasons for saying that; but the point is still the same. It's funny how you think about situations differently when you're not the only one involved, when you feel that you have some form of responsibility to take the brunt of bad situations so that it has a minimal effect on their day to day life.

We tend to find ourselves having discussions about 'business' at the oddest times and in the weirdest of places; like on the tube or on the way to Zumba or just a random one word text at half ten at night! We're really not serious people so for us to do the whole sit-down-serious-business-talk is still an alien experience for us. We much prefer our version: take up all the floor space with beads and equipment making stuff awhile having a semi serious discussion. Because multi-tasking is important when there's 2 of you with three hands between you to get things done. I think for us, it kind of feels like there's having the idea and going through the motions of having a business; technically falling into the category of a business, and then there's ticking the previous two boxes and feeling like you have a business. I think we definitely tick those first two boxes. Hopefully one day the whole concept will sink in. I tend to 95% of my time thinking about marketing, new designs, what materials we need to stock up on etc, 4% of my time doing marketing and 1% of my time creating and getting on with things like eating and sleeping. You would have hoped that by now with DWT taking up most my cognitive storage space that my brain would have got the message of "business". Yeah.....It hasn't.

I really love what we get to do with Dead With Tequila. I can honestly say that being able to run this little 'business' and being to do things that represent us as people and to be able to do it with my best friend in the world is probably my biggest achievement to date. But the one thing that really makes this so worth while for us is the support that all of you give us. It means so much to us when any of you like, share or even just follow us! It gives all of the hard work and energy that we put into this a purpose. We love each and every one of you, and we can't thank you enough for your support! We always want to know your opinions, even the bad ones! If we don't know what wrong we can't change or fix it! If anyone has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them too! There is so much going on in the Tomb right now that we are so excited to be able to share with you soon, so stay tuned!

Don't forget to check out the Dead With Tequila Store! (Had to get some marketing here some where!)

*Bad grammar intended :P

You know the drill!!! comments below....Twitter...come bug me :D

Change is Coming.....

So over the last couple of weeks we've been having some serious talks in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

The end of July will mark 1 year of Dead With Tequila, and we have decided that some big decisions need to be made about how we do things, both on Storenvy and in the Tomb.

Change is coming.

We have got so many new ideas, and feel that the way we currently operate just isn't gonna cut it for all the craziness that's in the pipeline. These new ideas and plans show more of who we are, both as individuals and as a brand; not that the items currently available don't do that, but the awesomeness that we have in store for you does so even more! We really want to develop our style and personality in this next year, and hopefully in doing so can grow our brand that is Dead With Tequila. We want to flaunt our dark and twisted, weird and wonderful, creative and quirky sides. So far we don't feel as though we've been able to do that. We want to make a statement. We want to be able to be like " 'Boom!' This is us. Yes, we're young and arguably inexperienced, but we've worked our asses off and created something pretty amazing with absolutely nothing at all, and we're proud of what's been achieved!"

That's really the truth of ALL of this...If you told me two years ago that I'd be here, running and creating a small business, I would have thought you were crazy. Believe it or not, this isn't a life long dream of mine. I haven't spent years of my life imagining what it would be like to run my own business with my best friend, and considering all the potential names for it. Dead With Tequila is really the result of me throwing away three years worth of work because I got sick, and to continue on studying was no longer going to be a viable option for me. Dead With Tequila only exists because, I happened to have the most incredible best friend, who was willing to take a chance with me, with this crazy idea, stand by me and help add to the craziness of it all. This was one of those times where neither of us had any idea about what we were doing, but being to stubborn to back down from the challenge, went ahead and did it anyway; and if we got stuck, well hey, that's why the world invented Google.

This first year of Dead With Tequila has really been about us finding our feet. Learning. We didn't have any aims or targets for the last year; the way we saw it, just opening the store was an achievement! Then the fact that we had more than 1 page view was a shock....Then actually making a sale....We refreshed the page about three time to make sure it wasn't a mistake! We couldn't believe it. Now that we feel we know what we're doing, understand how the relevant platforms work, we can now start putting all our plans into place. 

Some of these ideas that we have aren't new; they've been with us right from the start, unfortunately we had to learn to walk before we could run. This was probably the only time my mum got involved with the business side of things, (she runs about 3 for various people) other than educating me and Carrie on how tax works (still don't think I understand it!). Her advice was to pace ourselves, and in the process let our ideas develop. So, we've held back. We are now ready to start unleashing the crazy on you! 

The way that we group our items is going to be big change. Our products will no longer be grouped by type e.g. Wire Bracelet or Elasticated Bracelets etc. We have decided to create themed collections, any new products will be produced as part of a theme, meaning that we can really spread our creative wings. Some of the names that have been tossed around for these collections are just wicked! But you're just gonna have to wait to see what they are. We haven't quite worked out the finer details of how we are going to go about implementing this overhaul yet. At the moment it seems like the best choice is to close the store for a day or so. It's been discussed that we may release one of these new collections at a time, say one a month or something. The problem with this would be that some items may have to temporarily disappear. 

Some of the current collections will stay. Most likely the Accessories, Posters and Original Art mainly because the items currently in these collections won't fit with the new themes. Hopefully more of these collections will be raising money for other charities.     

So lots to be doing, sea things, evil bunnies, weird and wacky stuff!! I hope you're just as excited as I am about all this! 

As usual leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions, magical unicorns, flying monkeys etc. below or come and bug me on twitter ;D  

Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey

So you may, or may not know that I recently started a project for +Dead With Tequila. I'm really excited about this one, because it really takes me back to doing one of the things that I love most, and that's cartooning. 

Now, I would never go as far as to call myself a cartoonist, not by a long shot; I'm a graphic artist. I had an amazing art teacher at school who, before she started teaching, use to work as a graphic designer. She was always so supportive, and was always eager to see what I had in mind for my next piece; she really stoked the fire, and would frequently throw new ideas at me that I may never have considered if she hadn't planted the seed. Not that I didn't get that support at home. My mum is also an artist, as was her mum. Both my younger sister and I, grew up being able to paint and draw before we could read and write. When I was little my mum would collect the +Disney comics and have us drawing the characters, and colouring them in. So cartooning was something I started really young, and it pains me to say it, but I haven't done anything like it in ages; so for me this new project is like being a little kid again, but with my own designs and ideas. 

If I'm totally honest with you...I don't like painting. The whole "It's so relaxing" thing just irritates me. I don't find it relaxing, to me, painting is some what of a chore. I do it because I have to, or because it's the most appropriate, viable medium to use for a piece at the time. it's not because I can't paint. I'd like to think that I'm fairly alright at it (if you disagree, that's fine, I love you anyway :]) I just don't find it all that fun. My preferred mediums are Pencil, Pen, ink, Chalk, Charcoal (I love the mess it gets you in!) and of course digital. Paint certainly doesn't make it onto my list. As much as I enjoy creating things on my graphics program, there's nothing like being able to get out all my pencils and fine liners and... just... drawing things. Like with this awesome project!!

This project will become a hybrid of drawing and digital. I'm creating a cartoon series of little weird characters. For this to work on a mass scale (by mass scale I mean, they won't be one offs) my plan is to draw my characters, whole, and at different angles, as well as broken down into parts.  By this I mean arms on their own, legs on the own, heads, bodies etc plus any little extra bits, like plants or bombs (hint hint). Once I've got all of these parts drawn and inked, they will get scanned and taken into my design program. This will mean that I can then build my characters however I want them, without having to redraw them each time. It will also mean that I can get them printed multiple times.

I'm hoping that once I've done a bit more on this project that I will feel as though I can share some "in progress" pics with you. Keeping it all to myself is killing me. Even Carrie (my partner in crime at Dead With Tequila) hasn't really even seen what I've done so far. She knows the very basic form of my plan, but that's about it! I've already started throwing names out there, trying to decide on what to call the collection already. 

I'll tell you this: 

It's all going to be black and white, if I add colour it will be in small places. All the characters are animals, and yes, they do all have names! It has a strong influence of the Day of the Dead festival. Bookmarks.

Make of that what you will.


So, you still, with me after all that?? :P If you are, you can leave a comment below, or find me over at Twitter (see right hand column)              

We Interrupt Your Internet Surfing With Flash Update Post

Okay here we go updates. Quick fire style!In the Tomb:

• +Dead With Tequila Giveaway details are up!! Find out how to enter HERE. Bundle totals approx £15 worth of goodies.

• May 22nd is World Goth Day!! Dead With Tequila will be having a one day flash sale to celebrate!! 10% off throughout the store with coupon code GOTH10.

• The Wild Life Collection will launch in he store in June!! Date to be confirmed. this collection is raising money for the WWF. £2 will be donated from every item purchased in this collection.

• I've just stared working on a new art collection for Dead With Tequila, which I'm very excited about. It's quickly turning into more of a project than I had originally anticipated. I keep having more ideas and adding on to the plan, and then adding extras onto those things, and giving myself too many choices. Good problems though....May be I should just stop choosing?? Do them all?? Hmmm...

In other news, and not so other news...

• On the subject of the last bullet point, I'm really getting into this new collection, which means some other things that I've already started are gonna fall by the way side a bit. I only have so many pairs of hands (Well, one. One HAND that is...just the right one, never had a left. I have on good authority that I'm not missing out on much, but I digress) so things like Hearts Are Made For Breaking And For Pain Part 2 (part one is here) are gonna be a while....sorry. It's all going to be worth it in the end....I think... maybe I'll post some pics of the "in progress" project. Not making any promises though :P

• Now because I'm all for promoting other people's creative awesomeness, and because I think she is super wonderful; this is for anyone that that is yet to experience the wonderful evil writer extraordinaire +The Girl With Words. What the hell are you waiting for?!?!? Yes you will suffer, because she is amazing at writing and causes you to get way to emotionally attached to fictional characters, which is just testament to how great she really is; you really should give her a read. #OrangeSky is nearly at an end (dive in here, FYI I will hunt you down if you don't, I have my sources) If you're new to her own brand of evil, I suggest you start here with Silent Scream (the last set of brackets applies to all you people also, just a heads up.)

• While we're here in fiction land I've said it before in various locations,but I'll say it again.... If there are any scientists reading this, (or you know someone that is a scientist pass the memo along please) can you stop focusing on the silly stuff, like the origins of the universe and dark matter, and focus on the more pressing issues, you know, the important things like making it possible to hug and converse with fictional characters, and being able to physically step into a book... Also magic carpets. We need magic carpets.

I don't think I missed anything...Anyways, you know the drill, questions and comments are welcome, leave them below, or come bug me over on twitter (there's a button in the right hand column ;] )   

Shhhhhh...It's a secret...

For anyone wondering about what's been going on in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb of late, the answer is lots of awesome stuff. Quick summary....

• Givaway: We've finally finished putting together what's going to make up the bundle. Details should be up and ready to let you all loose on really soon  NOW!!.   Exciting stuff!! Click Here
• There's about 6 items in the bundle, I think. Give or take.

• The release date for The Wild Life Collection (raising money for WWF) has been narrowed down to June, so keep your eyes peeled for that. You can already preview most the stuff in the store if you want, there's only a few pieces that we haven't up loaded because they're unfinished.

• We've been playing around with some new ideas as well, but I can't say to much on that right now.

• There will be a 10% off flash sale across the store on World Goth Day, that's May 22nd for those that don't know. Coupon code will be revealed nearer the time.
• I did want to do a whole other collection** for this spectacular celebration of Goth awesomeness, but The Wild Life Collection to a lot longer than expected to finish, so there just hasn't been the time. Fingers crossed we might aim to do one for next year and have it as another charity collection (we've discussed the Sophie Lancaster Foundation as a charity)

• There may or may not be another longer sale in the summer. We haven't decided on this yet, so don't get your hopes up (there's still World Goth Day!) 

**I've been wanting to do some more Goth / Alternative style collections for a while now; I've been thinking and Edgar Allen Poe collection (You may say cliche, but I love his work. Random Fact: I have the same birthday as Poe). I recently got a bunch of new arty stuff to play wit that would work really well with this idea. There has also been talk of a Nordic/Viking theme collection, make of that what you will.... Any thoughts on this, or suggestions even...Let me know via comments, Twitter, carrier pigeon, magic unicorn (seriously, I expect a unicorn)

Take a peek....Dare you.

First things first - I've revamped... Again.....Slightly. The +Dead With Tequila store button that was on the right hand side was bothering my Inner Squirrel (the button was dark blue and really didn't work with the colour scheme) and the Brain Hamster had enough of listening the to whining....So I had to change it. I'm happy with the pages bar though....For now anyway ;)

Now the really important stuff...

Dead With Tequila have added awesome new stuff the the store. There's some cute bag/key charms, quirky earrings and gorgeous new bracelets that I think you'll all gonna love. Check it all out by clicking the "Shop Dead With Tequila" button at the top of the page.

 

In the Tomb

Guess what guys... +Dead With Tequila  have got  new stuff in the store for you to get your hands on, and even more is on the way!

Find it here

Plans for the giveaway are picking up speed, and there's even a sneak peek (keep scrolling) of the WWF collection from the Tomb!

Dead With Tequila Valentine's SALE!!!

Don't miss the +Storenvy  Valentine's Sale. You can get 20% off your order.

Runs Friday 13th through to Monday 16th of February.

You can find +Dead With Tequila in the Marketplace Here!

Because I said maybe...

 So in my last post I said that I might post some pic of stuff I'm working on before I finish, so here they are....  

A slightly wonky pic of my Christmas "doodle"

A closer look at the top half

A closer look at the bottom half

This will go into the +Dead With Tequila WWF collection

This will also go into the +Dead With Tequila WWF collection

Whirlwind

Hope you all had a great Christmas and new year, mine consisted of a whole lot of nothing. Although I had been "doodling" for my own pleasure rather than for +Dead With Tequila so that was nice; it's now less of a doodle though, when I finally finish it I'll post some pics. I might even post some of it unfinished, we'll just have to wait and see. On the subject of designing stuff, I have a new look (not me personally, the blog), hope you like it! (FYI if you don't, I'm not gonna change it any time soon, besides, who doesn't love bats!!).

Via Gorey Details on Facebook

Also I've been reading / getting addicted to Silent Scream by +The Girl With Words  (She is a writing goddess!). If you haven't read this yet, then where the hell have you been!! Read part 1 here. If you don't read this then your life will be incomplete. Seriously. Just ask the cute bat above.

Over in the Dead With Tequila Tomb, we've making and doing and scheming away with loads of great stuff. We're currently working on a collection t raise some money for the WWF. I'm not entirely sure yet when the collection will be released. Again I may, or may not post some pics of what we already have so you can see whats been going on. Another idea floating round the Tomb at the moment is for us to do a Giveaway. It's just an idea for now; we would love to heard if you like the idea, or not. You can leave a comment here or over at the +Dead With Tequila blog, or at Twitter, mine or Dead With Tequila (buttons are on the right).

More stuff coming soon.....