What the Heck is Zazzle?

In spite of Zazzle's growing popularity, there are still folks out there who ask me what it is. I thought I'd explain it a bit.

Sleeping Bulldog Tote Bag by SpotsDogHouse
See more Bulldog Bags

• Zazzle is a print on demand company. It's main appeal is that you can order as few as one item. Most printing places have a minimum of dozens of a particular design.
• You can design your own product or you can buy one that is already designed for you. You can even customize many ready-made designs.
• The ready-made products are designed by people like me who group them together in a virtual store. When someone buys a product with my design, I get a royalty. It may be only pennies or a dollar or two but it adds up.
• Zazzle offers more than just tee shirts and coffee mugs. There are pendants, trophies, stationary, cell phone cases, mouse pads, jewelry, electronics, housewares, hats, belt buckles and more items than I can list. They come out with new items all the time.
• From a few items I've seen they are high quality products. You can read the reviews to get an idea of what others thought.
• Zazzle products make great gifts. You can even get awards for your club or activity.

Take a look at my stores at
Ragtimelil       
SpotsDogHouse
RagtimelilsMugs         
RagtimeStudio

The Glass, Half Empty or Half Full?

I'm feeling a little down today, for no particular reason. I think it's because I had a few sales last week in my Zazzle store and now that's come to an end. I've been working hard on making silhouettes for my Dog Store to the point that my wrist hurts, but only have a few people visiting the store.
And this morning the park owner knocked on my door to tell me I had left the water on outside. It wasn't on high but still.....I feel like an idiot...
It was a lovely morning even though it was wicked humid outside. It felt good in the camper with the AC on drying out the air. I did a few things that I knew I wouldn't do once the camper heats up in the afternoon. Did some laundry and put some beans in the crock pot. Now the dogs want to do something but it's just still too hot. Once the sun comes around to the south side of the camper it heats up like an oven in here.
Another lean month for food and cash. I haven't heard back from the Food Stamp department. It has been a while. I don't like to use the phone because of my hearing.
I think the projects that are building up is getting to me too. I need just an item or so for each project but can't get to the store to buy it. I don't like to order something that costs a dollar or two and pay $6 for shipping. So the projects keep mounting up. Here's one in progress.

I would really like to attach the faucet to the pipe instead of the hose coming through the window. Then I could finish the back splash and would be able to close the window instead of stuffing plastic bags in the cracks. I just need PVC cleaner.

But tomorrow we're being rescued again and being picked up to visit with a friend. We'll play with computers, dogs and sheep. I can get a stop at the store too.

Wow. My stuff on Zazzle was selling yesterday. My best item are the Hard of Hearing buttons. I guess they are filling a need. I know I need to get one. I hope the upward trend continues.

I also had a wonderful miracle last week. A woman I met online offered to send me some yarn that she didn't need. I said I would use it. When the box came, I thought it was awfully heavy for yarn. It was 3/4 full of FOOD including packages of dog treats. There are truly angels out there!

Pizza and Zazzle. Too Many Zs

Today I am still waiting for my truck to be fixed. It has been a month now. I hope that's it for a while but I fear not.
I hitched a ride to the church food pantry today. My neighbor was given a pizza but she didn't like it so gave it to me. It was pretty bad. The crust was good, but the topping looked and tasted like it had been painted on. I cut a piece and put it in a frying pan and added some tomato sauce. I didn't have any cheese but had anchovies (of all things to get from a food pantry....) I happen to like anchoves so I threw some on. Not bad. At least it pretends to be a pizza. If I had more milk and some vinegar, I could have made cheese, but I'm down to my last four dollars. No money to squander on vinegar.
I've been working like crazy on my Zazzle store. If you haven't been by in a while, come by and take a look. I've been really cleaning it up and redoing the look as well as adding a ton of new stuff.