Notorious Mandaline

Electrical Engineer Career Tumbler

All the excitement about my new website has distracted me from writing about another exciting development: a whole new product line! Those of you who have been following my adventures with my new heat press and Cameo machine have seen my custom fashion designs. Now I have a line of tumbler and mug designs using my "Notorious" monogram.

This design can be altered for different careers.

My husband's birthday is coming up and he requested a monogram for his insulated tumbler. He uses this to take his coffee to work with him so he wanted a design to represent his career. I altered the design from my monogrammed t-shirt to use hip hop inspired Gothic lettering. The shirt can be made with the Gothic lettering as well. Anyway, I changed the arrows to electrical cords and placed a lightening bolt at my husband's request. He and I are both pleased with the end result. Pressing the tumbler in the heat press makes the decal much more durable. I hear from other designers that heat pressed decals are dishwasher safe, although the insulated tumblers are not so we can't test that.

Notorious D.A.D.

Next, I purchased some new tumblers to make designs for Father's Day and Mother's Day. Old school hip hop and rap are pretty much ingrained in the brains of most of my peers, so I kept that theme going. My Notorious D.A.D. pre-made tumbler features a bottle of beer, but that could be changed to make it more personal for dad who's not into beer. You could do a roll of duct tape for DIY dads, or whatever. This is the only product I have already made and ready to ship. It is a 30 ounce stainless steel Ozark Trail tumbler shaped to fit in a cup holder. You can purchase it from my Etsy shop.

The Notorious M.O.M. wine bottle

My Mother's Day design says "Notorious M.O.M." and features a wine glass, which can of course be customized. I wanted to offer this one for sale because I was so excited to find a Vogue Manna "Zaza" bottle. This insulated bottle is 24 ounces and holds an entire bottle of wine! It keeps liquids cold for 24 hours or hot for 12 hours. The wine bottle shape goes perfectly with my design. Unfortunately I decided to use hot pink heat transfer vinyl and the brand I chose doesn't seem to work well on the tumblers. Big strings of glue came out and went all over the design and when I tried to clean them off the decal lifted and I had to re-press it. I tried again on the other side of the bottle, peeling the design cold instead of hot, but the same issue occurred, only not as bad. So, I can't sell this bottle because it just doesn't meet my standard of quality. I will keep it for myself and take it to swim meets. I bet all the moms are going to want to sit next to me! I am ordering a different brand of vinyl to see if I can get a hot pink that works on the tumblers. You can custom order a Zaza bottle from my Etsy shop, but until I find a better vinyl I am only offering the design in black. This design, and the others, can be applied to white ceramic mugs as well, perfect for moms who drink wine from a mug. I know a few of those!

The mugs have been a nice break from the doll world, which has been full of unpleasant drama lately. I had no idea the passions that ran through the doll shop atmosphere before I got into it! My husband is always talking about the reality T.V. show he's going to produce and call "Doll Wars". I have made incredible friends through my doll work. Some of my closest friends, in fact, are people I've never met in person. To grow your business you really have to have a social media presence and that online persona can inspire incredible love. Unfortunately, there are other people who hate you just as fervently, despite having never met you. It gets exhausting and overwhelming, and I like to retreat to Etsy, which doesn't have the same degree of nastiness in the general atmosphere, or the fashion world, where people are extremely supportive of one another for the most part. So for the time being I am probably going to have more fashion listings. I know I'm way behind on the Doll Detective posts, though, so I promise to catch back up.

In other news, I am in the process of adding a Paypal button to my new website: www.ateliermandaline.com so the purchase process is a little easier. Right now you can see products in my web store but you can't purchase them through the web site. I will have to upgrade the site for that feature and I don't currently have the funds. You can link from the site to all my shops, however, or you can email me and place your order that way.

I am way behind this week due to the doll drama issue, which has had me negotiating with USPS and eBay and a buyer for three straight days. On top of that our 15 year old Eskimo Spitz has something wrong with his foot and is really limping. His legs have been giving out recently and he stands around just randomly barking at nothing. I'm getting worried he's having mini strokes or something. But now he got what looks like warts all over his toes on one foot. I can't get him to the vet for several days because the kids already have so many doctor, dentist, and orthodontic appointments scheduled. Unless the foot turns into a real emergency I am treating it at home with ointment and pain reliever and I'm trying to keep a sock on the foot so he won't chew on it. So I have to follow him around all day replacing his sock! Fun times. I promise to post a new Doll Detective soon, and in the mean time, please visit my shop and enjoy my new tumblers!