Japan Relief T-Shirts

I uploaded two Japan Relief T-Shirts, “Hope for Japan” at CafePress in March in response to relief efforts for the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and some of them were sold and a portion of the sales were donated to the American Red Cross through CafePress.

On April 03, 2011, I heard the news that two workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plants who went missing since the earthquake and tsunami were found dead. The two workers, aged 21 and 24, were trying to protect the nuclear plant while being hit by the earthquake and tsunami. When I heard this news, I decided to create the design of “Fukushima 50” to honor workers who died young to protect their country. There are more than 50 workers, actually at least 300, but the workers who stayed at the nuclear plants are known as the “Fukushima 50”, and their work conditions are extremely dangerous, and some sources say that they are expected to die with radiation within weeks and months.

I wrote a slogan to honor them.

“Honor the 50 nameless heroes who stayed behind at the Fukushima nuclear plants to save countless others following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.”

This slogan is too long for T-Shirts, so I wrote “Fukushima 50, Unknown Heroes” and “Fukushima 50 “ in Japanese, and the final product is here. These people who have sacrificed themselves to save their country must be remembered as true heroes.

On April 7^th, the biggest aftershock with a magnitude 7.4 hit the northern areas in Japan, and millions of people faced blackouts. Their minds must be full of fears and worries. The right after the tragedy deprived everything from people on March 11, they were helping each other and organized at the evacuee centers, patiently lining for food, with no looting or stealing. The media all over the world reported their civilized manners at the devastation with a great wonder and respect. I hope they will get back their normal life as soon as possible.

On April 10^th, I uploaded “My Heart is with Japan”

I originally planned to make a heart in red, but made it in pink so that the cherry blossoms around the heart match well with the heart.

It's been a month since the earthquake hit Japan, and I read the news that people offered a silent prayer to the victims at 2: 46 PM when the earthquake hit the northern areas in Japan. According to the news, the aftershocks will keep happening for the next ten years. I hope they will survive and handle the situation well.

"Tsunami surviving dog"

A dog was rescued after 3 weeks floating in the sea on the top of a roof. The two year old female mix later met her owner at the shelter. This news touched my heart as well as many all over the world. I decided to create art work of this amazing story. We sometimes see hope and courage in small animals. It might be a little too late to create the design about the tsunami surviving dog, but I wanted to express the hope in “A Little Survivor.”

I signed up for Zazzle to sell original t-shirts online.

I opened a Zazzle store, TMK Original T-Shirts Shop in March 2011.

It was easy to open the store just by typing my e-mail address and store name.

I have a Cafe Press account as well, but wanted to try a different drop shipping service at a different company, and sometimes visited the Zazzle website to check their services and products before I signed up. I was impressed that it's free to run a store at Zazzle. No membership fee is required. I logged in “My Account” and looked around the menus to get used to their services.

I wrote a store description:

Welcome to TMK Original T-Shirts Shop! We offer original T-Shirts that can not be found at any other store; unique and humorous designs for seasonal events, cute and funny cats, Japanese Kanji with beautiful illustrations, and more. Check back frequently for new designs for upcoming events and special occasions!

They have a lot of products, but I will focus on T-Shirt designs for a while, and then create other items little by little. I already prepared some designs for this upcoming Easter. I have created and set up some other seasonal designs at Cafe Press, but this is the first time for me to create Easter designs.

The menus in “My Account” are recognizable by their names, so I was able to add a new category, Easter, under Store Categories, upload the image named My First Easter 2011 to the “Image” folder, and add it to the baby T-shirt, and now it is “In Progress” in “Products.” I couldn't figure it out how to move the product to the Easter category so that people can see the product at my store. I will do it tomorrow.

Next day, I successfully published my first design, "My First Easter 2011” at my Zazzle store, even though it took me some time to find the “post for sale” button.