Well, I started ameriyank.com in the late 1990′s to give away graphics for personal use. At that time free web space was in abundance and I could play with my hobby to my heart’s content.
That didn’t last long. Funny thing about people in business, they want to make money. HOW DARE THEY? (smile) But dare they did and I soon found that my give aways were eating into my own personal budget. Many people closed their free sites, but an email I received from a grandmother made me want to find a way to keep my site running.
Her email was sweet and honest. It was a simple thank you. You see, she had no money to buy any gift for her grandchildren for Christmas. (I’m in tears just at this…) But she went on to profusely thank me for my graphics because it had enabled her to give them something, a page of their own on the Internet, lovingly put together by grandma. She’d found free space, at the time still available for small sites like hers, and used it to build pages for each of her grandchildren.
So, now I just HAVE to figure out how to pay for this thing, you know what I mean? I had some British friends on the Internet. I drew a Union Jack. Believe it or not, that sucker is HARD to draw. Anyway, this new thing called “cafepress.com” allowed me to add a design on products (for free mind you) and they would actually PAY me if anything sold. So, I joined, followed the directions, and sent the link to the shop to my British mates online (THANKS, BT!)…who sent it to their mates…who sent it to their mates…and so on. Pretty soon I was making enough money to keep my web site open for the nice grandma and others like her. My goal was achieved. All was well.
Then, I began to have health issues. The end result is that because of a list of maladies I will not bore you with, I was forced to make designing my new career. That’s OK. I like it. But it keeps me from paying much attention to my original web site. It is no longer state of the art, but it is still there. For all the nice grandmas out there who may need it.
I got tired of AmeriYank, but the site is still there. Still, I wanted something to pull all of my differently themed shops together. “Shoe” is a nickname. I added the “Auntie” because, well, “Shoe” by itself seems silly. Then I bought the domain and drew myself a pink sneaker. And, “Auntie Shoe” was born.
Recently, I have started making designs for TV shows like Dallas and Dancing with the Stars. But, I have many shops, on many different print-on-demand (POD) sites. These are some of the ones on CafePress: