Happy New Year from Thriving Ink! There were plenty of ‘worsts’ in 2008 for our country so let’s focus on the bests, shall we?

the launch of thriving ink, barack obama, s’more cupcakes, cowboy boots from ebay, chuy’s chips and salsa, photoshop elements, alamo drafthouse, black hole sun by aj dimarucot for DBH, the 2008 UT football season, new emptees resources, cicadias on a summer night, the presidential debates, pita pit, out-of-state visitors (thanks angelica, zoe, kristy, cristina, heather, jeff, and dan), tina fey, working with TI independent sales reps, the olympics, free cookie friday at storyville, christmas in california, jon and kate plus 8, babysitting a 4 year old on a regular basis, austinist.com, little league world series in san bernardino, it’s always sunny in philadelphia dvds, making new friends in austin, pool trade show in vegas, shameless self-promotion on facebook, big top candy shop, rare magazine, south austin, tattoos by matt decker, ken marshall’s band tees, fantastic bonanza, fire trucks, pineapple express

We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to look forward to in 2009. Thank you for all the support–we made it through the first year! Yes! 

Don’t forget to check out Flickr  for quite the large archive of Thriving Ink photos. Basically, it is a collection of all of the photos we have taken over the past year plus some of our press and promotional photos! It is fun to look back and see how far we have come…

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We are spending Christmas in the Bay Area and eating lots of homemade sugar cookies as well as seeing all of our dear friends and family…

Dad and I loaded up the car and made the 25 hour trip from Austin to Pleasanton with the car full of presents, and diet coke for Jenelle. (Think the Polar Express minus the train…)  Brenda, Matt, and Jake took the easy route–Southwest Airlines. 

The Dronkers are now all together and excited to enjoy the holidays together (or eat a lot, whatever).   

Merry Christmas from Thriving Ink and The Dronkers Family! 

We have three new shirts to commemorate Thriving Ink’s run in Austin, Texas. After living here for almost a year (time flies…) we have really been embraced by most of you Austinites. So thank you to everyone that welcomed us to Texas–you haven’t seen the last of us.

Designed by yours truly, they are available for pre-order here. Printed on American Apparel Organics!  

15% off with coupon code ‘Austin08′. 

These shirts will be available at the Keep Austin Bizarre Christmas Bazaar at the Storyville booth (along with other Thriving Ink tees) and later at the Storyville shop on Guadalupe. 

We are now bringing Thriving Ink back to it’s hometown–Pleasanton, California. It’ll be good to be back in The Bay. 

These Ken Marshall designs are on their way to the printer–and they were chosen by you in a facebook vote!

These will be available for pre-order at www.thrivingink.com in the next couple days!

Thanks to everyone who voted! 

What to do when you have 10 or so awesome designs to choose from and cannot decide which ones to print? You ask your friends! Duh! And that is exactly what we did. 

 Help us choose our next designs here. 

The current number of votes is 130. Voting ends tonight!

Thanks to everyone who voted, and thanks Ken for the insane art!  

We are looking for friends who are interested in making some extra cash and spreading the word of Thriving Ink to your area. However, this is not your usual street team. This is an opportunity for you to make $5 for EVERY shirt you sell. How do we do this? Well, we give you a personal coupon code. Every time that coupon code is used, you get $5 a shirt. If you want a catalog- we’ll send it. Want some stickers to pass out with your coupon code? We will send those too. 

Not only is there an incentive for you to sell the shirts (think Thriving Ink Independent Sales Rep) but there is also an incentive to buy. The coupon code will be for 15% off for all of your friends and fam to enjoy. 

This is an easy way to make some money, especially around the holidays and a great way to get the word out about Thriving Ink. We want everyone to know that Thriving Ink supports artists. There is no better gift than wearble art. 

If you are interested e-mail me at jenelled@thrivingink.com or message me on facebook. We have a TON of ideas on how to sell a ton of shirts and are more than happy to share them with you. 

Don’t hesitate to pass this along to friends who may want in on the action. 5 bucks a shirt can add up really quickly if you think about it… 

Jenelle

I just noticed our cool little brand profile at www.wearyourstory.com. For those of you who don’t know what Storyville is, they are an amazing t-shirt shop in Austin and Baton Rouge run by the Harvey clan. They also happen to have a kick-ass website and some awesome tees. We are proud to have Thriving Ink available in both their stores and website — Us Dronkers, and The Harveys both have a dedication to supporting artists. 

Check out the brand profile and all of the awesome shirts they have. Thriving Ink Brand Profile

You can even check out my personal favorite shirts here.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

Congratulations to Jake and Ron Dronkers for winning the 2008 Dronker’s Gingerbread Competition. They have lost 2 years in a row so they really needed this win to stay competitive, if you know what i mean. 

They decided to replicate their favorite hamburger joint, Hut’s in Austin. Notice the details, from the hoho cars to the candy cane porch.

Congratulations Jake and Ron! Better luck next year Brenda, Zoe, Matt and Jenelle…

Thank you to everyone who came into Storyville Austin last weekend to vote for your favorite shirts submitted by UT Students! Here are your winners! 

1st and 2nd Place- Roxanne Palermo 

3rd Place- Christy Sheldon 

4th Place- Meghan Moon

 Thank you to everyone who submitted designs and to all those who came in to vote. Shirts will go on sale at Storyville within the next 10 days. 

 Special thanks to Josh, Gabe, Sabina, Ian and Jeff!  

 To pre-order, contact Jenelle at jenelled@thrivingink.com.