the bluecotton blog

We’ll be making some big design changes to the BlueCotton Blog in the coming days.  Because of this, you may be seeing some different blog layouts come and go in the immediate future.  Please bear with us.

The old adage “April showers bring May flowers” has never been truer here in Bowling Green.  The spring of 2009 was extremely wet and even approached soggy!   Climate data by the University of Kentucky indicates rain on seventeen of April’s thirty calendar days.  April’s 4.4 cumulative inches of rain resulted in some very lush (read: overgrown) lawns and gorgeous spring flowers all over the SouthCentral Kentucky area.

Similarly, BlueCotton was showered with several significant press recognitions and appearances this spring.  The April 2, 2009 USA Today Lifestyle cover featured the Favorite t-shirt survey we conducted back in February.

On April 11th, our fearless leader Mike Coffey went live on Barry Moltz’ podcast, “Business Insanity Talk Radio” to discuss t-shirts as the original microblog.  Click here to listen!

Mike was interviewed for Business Week’s publication Small Biz.  In the April/May issue, “Turn On, Tune In, Tweet Out,” Mike discusses Twitter’s impact on our customer interaction. Twitter is a positive addition to our customer service tools, and we enjoy using the 140 character limit to engage customers.  You can read the article here.

Through April, We’ve been using TwitPic to send photos of customer t-shirts hot off the dryer, actively issuing daily coupon codes for a free custom t-shirt, and tweeting discount codes up to 50% off the total order.   We’re continuing our Twitter campaign through the summer and have some special BlueCotton and Twitter-themed t-shirts on deck to give away very soon.

We’re confident this publicity shower will push us to blossom through the summer!

If you are running out of reasons to resist joining Twitter, we’re about to make it much harder.

BlueCotton.com is now announcing daily coupon codes on our Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/BlueCottonTweet

Yep, you read it correctly, we’re handing out discounts everyday for 5%, 10%, 25% and even 50% OFF your next BlueCotton.com t-shirt order!

All codes are a one time use, so keep an eye on our tweets.  Don’t miss your chance at huge savings! The code will be clearly stated in the tweet update. Once you have your shirt designed, continue to checkout where you may enter the code in the discount code box.  Orders must be placed through BlueCotton.com and the discount will be awarded to the first person to enter the code upon checkout. For offers of 25% OFF or more, a $500 maximum savings will apply. The code is active until it is redeemed.

So come on people, or should we say tweeple – follow BlueCottonTweet on
Twitter now for your chance to score some huge savings!  You may also see
your shirt hot off the presses, before it is boxed and shipped to you.  Our
production team uploads photos of customer designed t-shirts to
BlueCottonTweet daily!

While everyone’s taking a closer look at their expenditures and analyzing each dime, you oughta know BlueCotton wants to help you stretch your apparel dollar further.  We’re ready to bail YOU out of our overpriced competitors’ trap and show you how to get the most shirt for your money.  There are many ways to create a striking t-shirt design without breaking the bank.  Anyhow, let’s start with a few basics on how we price our shirts.

1. The more garments your order, the less expensive each one will be.  This allows us to spread the cost of production out over more shirts and save you money.  50 shirts will be less expensive PER SHIRT than 25 shirts.  100 shirts will be less expensive PER SHIRT than 50 shirts.  It’s kinda like buying a pallet of cheese curls from Costco…its cheaper PER BAG in the long run to buy the whole pallet instead of buying one bag at a time.  You get the idea?

2. The fewer ink colors we print, the less expensive the shirts will be.  A one color front is cheaper than a two color front; that much is obvious.  I will show you later on the blog how you can use the color of your shirt as a “free color” and save money on ink colors.  A shirt printed only on the front is less expensive than a shirt printed on the front and back.  Makes sense, right?

3. The cost of the blank t-shirt is factored into the pricing.  Premium brand shirts–like American Apparel and Bella–are more expensive than more standard brands like Hanes and Gildan.  50/50 cotton / polyester blend shirts are less expensive than 100% cotton.  Depending on your personal preference, a 50/50 is not necessarily a “cheap” shirt. 50/50s are lighter in weight and resist significant shrinkage.  If price is a factor, 50/50 garments are the way to go.  Since white tees do not go through a dyeing process, they are less expensive than color shirts.  For the absolute lowest cost shirt, you want a 50/50 in white.

Holla back.

Order your custom St. Patrick’s Day shirts now! Make sure you show up to work or school in green to avoid being the designated pinch-ee on St. Patrick’s Day. Are you having a St. Patrick’s Day party or planning to go out with your crew for a pub crawl? Customize your group’s shirts here! You can start by editing one of our templates or start from scratch in our Design Studio. We have tons of great Irish, leprechaun and clover clip art for you to use!

From Wikipedia:

St. Patrick’s Blue, not green, was the color long-associated with St. Patrick. Green, the colour most widely associated with Ireland, with Irish people, and with St. Patrick’s Day in modern times, may have gained its prominence through the phrase “the wearing of the green” meaning to wear a shamrock on one’s clothing. At many times in Irish history, to do so was seen as a sign of Irish nationalism or loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith. St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. The wearing of and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the saint’s holiday. The change to Ireland’s association with green rather than blue probably began around the 1750s.

Here’s a few of our customer-created St. Patrick’s Day designs:

A shirt from your high school track team?
One from a sorority event?
Your all-time favorite rock band?
Or from the junior high summer camp where you met your first love?

We recently conducted a nationwide survey and found that roughly 4 out of 5 Americans still hang on to at least one favorite, sentimental old t-shirt – and, more likely, they still have two or three.

Shirts from a vacation led the way by far across all demographic groups.  Shirts from a business or employer, from a concert, from a favorite pro or college sports team, and from a charity run/walk also are popular.

So what’s your list?  Share it with us on our Facebook page, here.  Add a list to the discussion titled My Favorite Shirts, or add a photo to the album with the same name.

We’ll even get it started with a few of our own lists:

Brad:

• Racquet Ball t-shirt – paper thin light blue tee that I bought at a thrift store in Seattle in 2000.
• Dave Letterman shirt (the first time) – bought in 1998 while at the show. This shirt was retired in 2008.
• Hanes Beefy T with navy BlueCotton oval logo. I started wearing this bad boy around 2004. The shirt has probably been washed 300 times and it shows.
• BTSS shirt – my rap group from 4th grade. I still own this shirt although I can’t sport it. It had felt iron on letters that said BTSS. Brad, Ty, Shaun, Steve.
• CABG shirts – who does love a good coronary artery bypass graft shirt?

Angie:

• Gym tee, circa 1988. It is so soft, and still fits. No age jokes from you, Michael.
• Navy long-sleeve BlueCotton tshirt from Christmas 2003. Nothing says the holidays like that shirt.
• Guffy-Kuykendall shirt from Leann’s 2003 WKU Archaeology class. I wasn’t in the class, but the design is choice.
• Get Fresh Crew tshirt, tearing it up at the B+B on Fri nights. You know who you are.
• My Amazing Delores tshirt from 1996. Because she signed it “Amaizing Delores.” Amazing.