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Give Us a Tune on CafePress

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Welcome!

I built this lens to promote one of the shops I maintain on CafePress. As such, it's really all about the sales. I'll try to avoid complete spamminess by using this lens to provide more background on how I made the designs, and what I was thinking at the time, than I'm able to do in the shop itself.

This shop carries designs with themes related to music or dance. I started it with an even narrower focus, on the styles of Ireland and Scotland (which are distinct, even if they often get lumped together as "Celtic"). I soon found that I was having ideas that went beyond that, but still fit the overall theme. Almost all the apparel items that allow it are offered with the design in a choice of "full front" or "pocket" placement.

I'll be featuring a rotating selection of three to eight designs at any one time. I'll try to get in and shuffle them at least once a week, but I may take a little longer now and then.

With one or two exceptions, all my designs are produced using Inkscape, an open-source vector graphics program.

NEW! CafePress has finally added their most-requested product--Dark Sweatshirts. I've added them to most sections of this shop. They've also added a "carousel" on the product page, so I'll be updating the Shopping Tips soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Shopping Tips

For each design, I'll provide direct links to one or two items on which it's featured. However, all the featured designs are available on almost all of the CafePress apparel items, including men's and women's t-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies, as well as most of the gift items such as clocks, mugs and tote bags. If you like the design but want on a different product, you can get to the other offerings easily. In addition, the graphic of each design links to the section where all the products that feature the design are gathered together.

Give Us a Tune screen shot

Every product has a "trail of bread crumbs" navigation at the top (see 1 in the screen shot). Most items can also be found from the design's section name (2), which can also be used to find other designs that aren't currently featured on the lens.

Don't forget that you can frequently use a coupon to reduce your cost. I provide a feed of current coupon codes in the upper left (3).

Skull and Cross 'Bones

Arrgh, matey! Here's a musical take on the Jolly Roger: a skull (with gold tooth), and crossed trombones.

The 'bones are traced from a photo and the skull is freehand work, both with the pen tool. There's no text on this one.

Just Mandolin

Just a drawing of an F-style mandolin. It's a hand tracing of a photograph, using the pen tool.

There's Always Room for 'CELLO

This is obviously a pun on an advertising slogan, and is perfect for any cellist. The cello is hand-traced from a photo using the pen tool, and the text is in the Flat Brush font.

Got Zouk?

Here I've drawn an Irish bouzouki, which is an instrument that's related both to the Greek bouzouki and to the mandolin. Irish musicians--by which I mean players of Irish music worldwide--often refer to this instrument as a "zouk". It's paired with the question from another well-known ad campaign.

The drawing is mostly freehand pen tool work, with a few pieces made of shapes (such as ellipses for the tuner buttons). The text is Verdana Bold.

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Sax & Violins

This time the pun is purely visual--in fact, there's no text at all. There's a tenor saxophone, an ampersand and two violins.

The instruments are, again, freehand tracings of photos, mostly with the pen tool and a few ellipses.

Ghillies

No pun at all here. this is a pair of ghillie pumps, the traditional shoe for Scottish dancing.

It's almost all pen tool work, with a fair amount of "copy & alter" in the knot at the top.

You can learn more about Scottish dancing at my lens Ready...And! A Guide to Scottish Country Dancing.