New Funny Vintage Personalized "Cure All" Design

FUNNY ANTIQUE-LOOKING CURE ALL FLASKS AND MUGS

I just finished this "cure-all" snake oil restorative design and think it would make a humorous novelty gift for Christmas or a birthday. You can personalize it with your name. Here it is on a few items on Zazzle - a mug and a couple of different flask styles.

Funny Novelty Personalized Cure-All Vintage Coffee Mugs by FunnyTShirtsAndMore

Funny Novelty Personalized Cure-All Vintage Hip Flasks by FunnyTShirtsAndMore

Funny Novelty Personalized Cure-All Vintage Flasks by FunnyTShirtsAndMore

On the mug, the design repeats on the other side. All you have to do is type your name in the template field and it will change in both spaces.

On the flasks, there are two places to add your name, at the top and near the bottom, where you can name the laboratory where the magical elixir was prepared.

The rest of the text says, [Your Name's] patented Restorative / cures headache, spasms, pain, nervous fits, hysteria, blues, typhoid, heart palpitations, seasickness, flatulence, consumption, fainting spells, black death, and leprosy / best quality guaranteed.

It was fun making this design. I researched old Victorian and Edwardian newspaper advertisements to see what the old elixir ads looked like.

Thanks for stopping in to have a look!

-MK
see my new weebly website, where i have easy links to all my work online

All designs © MK Hess

New Workout Time Clocks for the Gym

WORKOUT TIME WEIGHTLIFTING GYM CLOCKS

I just added these new clocks to the LaborandLeisure store on Zazzle. These funny retro clocks are perfect for your home gym or wherever you exercise. In the middle, choose either a white or black vintage strongman who is lifting weights (a dumbbell) and wearing a cool mustache. On the outside rim, instead of numbers, the words WORKOUT TIME appear in thought bubbles, leading around the clock to the man's head.

If you don't like the bluish background, you can "customize it" to any color. These clocks would make a great Christmas or birthday gift for a weightlifter / powerlifter / bodybuilder or any masculine man who loves staying fit.

Workout Time Weightlifting Gym Retro Black Man Wall Clocks

Workout Time Weightlifting Gym Retro White Man Wall Clock

I'll show off more of my designs in the coming weeks, leading up to Christmas!

-MK
see all my stores

All designs ©MK Hess

Zazzle Black Friday Deals and Promo Codes 2014

Zazzle is already running plenty of deep discounts for the Christmas shopping season, with some products as much as 60% off. Check out these pages to see the current coupons / promo codes:

ZAZZLE BLACK FRIDAY SALE

ZAZZLE GENERAL COUPON PAGE

-MK

check out my stores

Pretty Christmas Themed Designs

PRETTY CHRISTMAS DESIGNS ON ZAZZLE

When it comes to Christmas, I'm more likely to make funny designs. But lately, I've been adding some more pretty ones to the FancyCelebration store and thought I'd show you some of them here.

I really like how this new snowflake pattern turned out. Here it is on a Christmas tree skirt:

Pretty Colorful Snowflakes Christmas Pattern Tree Skirt by FancyCelebration

And a Christmas stocking with a personalized name:

Pretty Colorful Snowflake Christmas Pattern Custom Small Christmas Stocking

See it on a lot more items here, including wrapping paper and lots, lots more. You can even use it as a background for your photos or text.

I also like the way this collage pattern turned out. It has a gingerbread man, reindeer, snowman, tree, mistletoe, candy canes and stars and snowflakes, all on a pretty green striped background. Here's the wrapping paper:

Cute Christmas Collage Holiday Pattern Gift Wrap Paper

And here's a cute pillow:

Cute Christmas Collage Holiday Pattern Throw Pillow

See more here.

These invitations turned out well. They have a modern, neon tree on them and plenty of room on front and back to add your party details:

Christmas Party Wavy Green Modern Tree Announcement by FancyCelebration

You can also find this tree on cards, postcards and stamps here.
I had fun making this vintage-style Christmas typography design. It says, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." Here it is on a pretty photo card and an ornament.

Christmas Vintage Typography Photo Card

Christmas New Year Vintage Typography Christmas Ornament

See it on many more items here.

There are the Christmas beer bottle labels for homebrewers, which I've already shown here. Here's one of them. Customize with your photo, your name, the name of your brew and the year. Click here to see all four.

Christmas Beer Customized Photo Green Argyle Personalized Shipping Labels

I also have a handful of other miscellaneous pretty Christmas designs. Explore the FancyCelebration store to see more.

-MK

All designs © MK Hess

Fun Clock Gift Ideas for Everyone on Your Christmas List

I have a new post on the HaHaHolidays Wordpress blog today, showing 25 of the clocks for sale on Zazzle. HAVE A LOOK if you're searching for a fun and original Christmas gift idea.

Here's a collage of the clocks that I put together on Polyvore:

Clocks for Every Style

-MK       

All designs © MK Hess

Fun and Funny Gift Ideas for Writers and Readers

FUN GIFT IDEAS FOR WRITERS AND READERS

I just added a new post to the Wordpress blog that lists all my Christmas gift ideas for readers and writers. I didn't want to repeat the same post here - so here's a link to the Wordpress post if you'd like to see more details about all the designs below. I hope it helps you find a good present for the writer or reader on your list!

Fun Gifts for Writers and Readers

-MK

All designs © MK Hess

Original, Personalized Christmas Gift Idea: Coaster Sets

COASTER SETS IN THE FANCYCELEBRATION STORE

The FancyCelebration store now has eight customizable bar and kitchen sets! This time last year, it only had one. Last winter, with the help of family, I compiled a list of themes to base them around. Naturally, with a brewer in the family, beer shows up a lot (saloon, brewery, pub, the man cave one also has beer). The list expanded to include what you see below: the diner, disco, poker room and cabin. There are still plenty more on the list, so I hope to update next year with all the new sets!

I have a lot of fun making these and enjoy seeing the sets come together. If you're looking for a personalized Christmas gift that's one-of-a-kind, I hope you find one you like. The ones that have sold have gotten nice reviews.

Make Your Own, Personalized Coaster Sets in the FancyCelebration Store

This is just a small sample of what's available. If you'd like to see the complete sets, click here. There are clocks, other coaster styles, wall posters, bottle openers, personalized beer labels and a lot more.

-MK
See all our stores

All designs © MK Hess

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Here are a few GIMP Halloween tutorials from across the web, in case you need something fun to do before the partying and trick-or-treating:

Make a Creepy Zombie Hand

Make Blood Splatters

Turn Yourself into a Zombie

Have a great Halloween!

-MK

"Hunky Bod" Funny Ichabod Crane Shirt for Halloween

FUNNY HALLOWEEN ICHABOD CRANE SHIRT

Halloween is coming up so fast, and I feel like there's never enough time to make all the designs I want to make. But this one didn't come from my head; it came from a relative. When he said it, I knew it had to be a shirt. A commercial came on for the TV show "Sleepy Hollow," and my relative - who loves to read - frowned and said, "Ichabod Crane does not look like that! He's supposed to be awkward. That guy looks more like Hunk-a-Bod Crane."

He was thrilled when I made this shirt based off his comment. I turned it into a Halloween costume shirt. I think the sleeveless muscle style is perfect for it:

Funny Halloween Costume for Muscle Man Sleeveless Tee by HaHaHolidays

So, if you're still in need of a costume for Halloween, you can be "Hunky Bod Crane." But you'll have to order fast because we're now nine days away from the best holiday of the year.

In other news, I've been making some new designs - mostly beer ones and patterns - and I hope to talk to my beer-brewer relative soon to run ideas past him. I've also been working on a new sci-fi novel manuscript, but it's only coming along about a page a day, and it's still too early to tell if it's leading anywhere. I'll post more designs in the coming days.

Happy Halloween!

-MK

Need a coupon for your Zazzle order? Click here.

All designs © MK Hess

  

Writer's Story Prompt: A Twist on Time Travel

    Time travel is a common story element. When I was querying literary agents about five years ago, a lot of them seemed to hate it. I guess they had good reason; according to their blogs, time travel was one of the most popular topics in the letters they received. If I had to read, "And then Timmy finds a time machine..." about fifty times a day, I'd probably get tired of it, too. (Side note: Timmy is a nuisance anyway, and should be properly dealt with).

    Still, there's a good reason why time travel is so common in stories: it's fun! Readers and TV watchers must like it, or it wouldn't keep showing up. As the agents said, the real difficulty is finding a unique angle on it. So, for this writer's prompt, take a popular topic like time travel and brainstorm a way to make it original. Here's an idea to get you started:

    While your character is off time-traveling, the world ends. That is, the world of her / his own time. Your character no longer has a "real" time to go home to and is essentially a time refugee. What does your character do and why? Does your character travel to the moment before the world ended and save other people? Does she try to change what happened or does she believe it can't be changed?

    Have fun writing!

    -MK

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