Dead Blob

The Throwboy promotion ended on Friday, and today I’ve just put all the names of the people who bought an RSS tee into a hat and picked out 3 winners at random.

The 3 lucky winners are… *drumrolls*

1) Brianna Alvarez, from USA
2) Robert Shippey, from UK
3) Gary Caplehorne, from UK

I’ll be emailing the addresses of the 3 winners to Throwboy today ready for your prizes to be mailed out as soon as they’re ready :)

Thanks to everyone who took part!

I definitely want to do more raffles and giveaways and stuff like that in the future :D

In other news, the limited edition SMILE t-shirt has been selling really well. Sizes small and medium have both sold out already, and there’s only a handful of large and extra large ones left. Seeing as the SMILE tees have nearly all gone, I think it’s a good time to release the next limited edition t-shirt!

I’m really excited about this new t-shirt. I’ve teamed up with American Apparel for the first time, and the t-shirts are just so soft and comfortable! I really love the cut/fit of them too. Also, using AA means I’ve been able to get the design printed on size XS for the very first time, which is perfect for you more petite people out there ^_^

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This new design is now on sale at johnnydurhamclothing.com.

In other news, most of you have probably heard about the Summer In The City youtube gathering which is happening in London later this month. If you haven’t you can find out details here. I’ve told a few people that I’ll be going, but I don’t think I’ve properly announced that I’m going yet, so I just wanted to say… I’ll definitely be there! :D

The gathering is going to be pretty huge, so I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new people. I was speaking to Gary about the gathering, and he told me he was taking lots of sets of badges to give away to people as little gifts, just because it’d be a nice thing to do (people like getting things for free xD) but also it would serve as a cool, novel way of introducing new people to his channel on youtube. I thought it was a cool idea, so I decided to do something similar. I’ve ordered a bunch of wristbands which will look something like this:

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The exciting thing about these wristbands is that they are slapper wristbands! I.e. they’re the kind that are flat until you slap them against your wrist, and then they coil around you :)

Slapper wristbands are SO MUCH FUN, so I’m hoping people will like them. So yeah, it’s a nice little fun gift I can just give out to people, and it’s also a way of promoting my webstore. It’s win-win :D

For anyone who can’t make it to the gathering but wants a wristband, I’ll probably be putting the remaining ones up for sale on the webstore after the gathering. I’d make them free on the webstore too, but they weren’t exactly cheap to get made, so I’d like to try and make a little of the money back for them. They’ll only go on sale for £1 - £2 though :)

In other (very exciting) news it was my sister’s birthday yesterday, and her boyfriend proposed to her, so she’s now engaged to be married! I’m so incredibly happy for her :D

Her new fiancee, David, is a great guy and we get on really well. That being said, I can’t wait to give him the “if you ever hurt my sister, I’ll hunt you down and kick your ass” talk à la Ross from Friends (when Chandler is getting married to Monica). It’ll be funny, because Dave could easily snap me in half xD

Here is a picture that I stole from my sister’s facebook of them together. I think this was when they were on holiday in Paxos last year… don’t they look cute?!

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I should really stop embedding pictures into my blog. I just got the invoice for my server charges for this past month, and it was £38! My blog doesn’t get THAT much traffic, but I think the fees were so high because lots of data was being transfered thanks to all the New York pictures etc that I’ve been uploading. Also, I’m on a really basic hosting service package, so if you go over your usage quota, the costs mount up fast! I’m going to try upgrading my package to hopefully reduce the costs because there is no way I can afford to pay in the region of £38 a month. I’ll let you know how it goes :)

Yikes! Long blog post, sorry!

Much love,

Johnny <3


Throwboy Pillows!

EXCITING NEWS!

To celebrate the release of the new RSS feed / Stalk me. t-shirt, I’ve teamed up with Throwboy™ to give away some free RSS feed pillows (pictured below).

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Anyone who orders an RSS feed t-shirt within the next week will be in with a chance of winning one of 3 FREE Throwboy pillows!

Throwboy is a brand I’ve been following online for the past few months, and I really love what they’ve been doing. They have an amazing range of pillows on their website, and they’re all really geeky designs, which I just LOVE!

That’s why I’m super excited to be teaming up with them to be able to give you all a chance to win one of these awesome pillows! :D

You might already have seen the t-shirt on sale on johnnydurhamclothing.com, but here is a picture of it in case you haven’t:

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There are a couple of other pictures of the t-shirt on the product page. One shows Kristen modelling the tee for me in Central Park, and the other shows the logo on the back of the t-shirt (complete with a Manhattan skyline)!

Promotion rules:

- This promotion will run until 11.59pm GMT (midnight) on Friday 14th August 2009, so you have just one week to place your order

- The 3 winners will be selected at random. I’ll put all the names of the entrants into a hat, and pick out 3 at random.

- Your t-shirt will be sent out shortly after placing your order (so you don’t have to wait for the promotion to end before receiving your t-shirt). If you’re one of the 3 lucky winners of a Throwboy pillow, I’ll contact you to arrange for your prize to be sent out to you separately.

- The promotion is NOT limited to one entry per person, so if you want to buy more than one t-shirt, your name will be entered per t-shirt, meaning you’ll have a greater chance of winning. However, only one prize may be given out per person.

I think I’ve covered everything there, but if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll get back to you :)

I hope you’re excited about this promotion and consider ordering one of the RSS t-shirts! Even if you’re not bothered about ordering a t-shirt, go check out throwboy.com because they’re amazing <3

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Look how happy this guy is! Just think… that could be YOU! ;)

So yes, if you’re interested in this promotion, you can order your t-shirt here.

Hope you’re all keeping well ^_^

Much love,

Johnny


More New York Pictures

I got back from New York a couple of weeks ago now, but I only just got round to getting my photos developed.

I decided to take a disposable kodak camera with me to New York rather than taking a digital camera or using the camera on my phone. I know it’s a lot easier to just use a digital camera because you can see the photos straight after you’ve taken them, and if they don’t come out well then you can quickly snap another one; but that’s the reason why I always like taking disposable cameras with me on holiday - it makes it so much more exciting for when you get home and you can get the pictures developed to see how they turned out! :D

Anyway, here are some of the pictures!

Jazza on a typical street in NYC - I love the shape of the mail boxes in America.

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Jazza and Liane!

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Jazza and I… We’re in love <3

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… except not really, but how cute do we look?! :P

HEY?! What’s that up there?!

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Central park is SO PRETTY!

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The whole concept of having a giant park in the middle of a city with loads of high-rise buildings is just amazing! I loved being in Central Park - it was like being inside a nice peaceful nest, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

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NYPD cars! :D

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Times Square with Jazza, Kristen and Todd :)

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My gosh I love giraffes :P

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(we were in F.A.O. Schwarz which is the huge Toy Store in NY)

The next couple of pictures are from when Jazza and I went to Warped Tour.

Look how close to the stage we were for A Day To Remember! They were so freakin good!

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There was also a band from the UK on the Hurley stage just before ADTR, called TAT, and they were also amazing! They were the hidden gem of the tour for me :)

Trying to figure out how to use chop sticks… I still suck at using them.
I’m not sure why I’m pouting, but YAY for Johnny Durham lighting in this picture! ;)

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The WALK : DON’T WALK signs in America are so cool!

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I love this next picture <3

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So, that’s all for the New York photos. There were lots of other pictures, but I just wanted to post a few of the better ones here in my blog.

Oh! I had a few pictures to use up when I got back from New York though, so I took the camera on a night out with me when I was at home with a few of my friends. Here is a picture of me with my friend Helen. I don’t even remember this picture being taken… I think I might have been ever-so-slightly drunk. Funtimes though :D

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I’ve got something exciting to announce on Friday this week, so… stay tuned :D

Much love,

Johnny <3


Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

These are pretty much the only drinks I’ve consumed in the past week. I don’t even want to think how much sugar is in all of them. It’s gross. But they taste SO GOOD.

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I’m a little addicted to energy drinks at the moment. I’ve been having at least 3 cans a day recently. And I’ve been drinking twice as many of the WKDs and Smirnoff Ices. Alcohol numbs the boredom though, and the past few days I’ve needed some relief from the painfully monotonous routine I seem to have settled into; Shower. Food. Internet. Food. Internet. Sleep. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

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Shhhh, I didn’t steal this picture from Jase’s blog, honest ;)

It’s weird, because individually, I enjoy all these things!

Showers….. nice.
Food….. yummy.
Internet….. fun.
Sleep….. cosy.

But when you get stuck in a cycle of doing nothing else but these things, they all become terribly boring. I think that’s why I drink so much, and why I like to sleep so much too. They’re my forms of escapism. Okay Johnny, save the breakthroughs for therapy :P

I’m going out with some friends tonight though which will be awesome, as I’ve not seen loads of them in WEEKS! I’m going to try and use up the last few photos on my disposable camera tonight too, so that I can get my photos of New York developed :D Woooooop!

I had a little re-design of the sidebar on johnnydurham.com yesterday when I was bored too. Let me know what you think? I like it a lot more now at least :)

Much love,

Johnny <3


Spider attack!

I’m back home in Durham now :)

It’s just for a few days, but it’s nice being back. Although, if any of you follow me on twitter you might have seen some updates from me earlier today when I was being attacked by an army of spiders. There was EIGHT of them in my bathroom this morning. One of them floated down from the ceiling and actually tried to eat my face, but I caught him with my hands and let him go out the window.

I have drawn a picture to illustrate the spider attacking event. It’s a fairly accurate representation of what happened, although it’s maybe not perfectly to-scale.

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I went back to the bathroom later on and the spiders seemed to be gathering together in one corner. I was almost certain at the time that they were conspiring against me… THEY WANT ME DEAD.

I’m starting to feel guilty now though. Perhaps I was too quick to judge them. What if they were planning to throw me a suprise party or something?! I think I might try making friends with them tomorrow morning. We’ll see how it goes.

Enough about spiders now though. I saw a frog in my back garden this afternoon. It was heavily raining and the frog seemed to be very happy basking aroung in the rain, and THIS IS NOT A GOOD CHANGE OF TOPIC JONATHAN. Stop talking about creatures you’ve seen around your house.

Okay, so ummm…. I actually have no other interesting news…

OH YES! I’ve just remembered something else I was planning on blogging about.

A couple of weeks ago I got contacted by the confused.com people about filming a review of their new website. I’m sure by now everyone reading this has already seen the likes of mr coollike, amazingphil and benloka in the confused.com adverts. So, I decided to make a video for them as well, because I really need all the extra money I can get. It felt a little like selling out, but to be fair, I have actually used confused.com for the past couple of years to help me find the cheapest car insurance. They actually HAVE saved me money. Gosh, I sound just like I did in the clips I sent XD. Anyway, I got a cheque through in the post today thanking me for submitting a clip, but informing me that none of my footage would be used in the final commercial… YESSSSS!

In the end it was win-win. I made a little money, and no-one ever needs to know that I made the video. Of course, I’m talking about it here in this blog, so you all know about it now… but it can just be our little secret, kay? ;)

I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but I truely love all of you who come here to read my blog. Especially you guys who leave comments. You’re amazing, and I always love hearing from you all, so THANK YOU! :D

Johnny <3


Nostalgia

In less than a month I get to leave Sheffield… for ever!

YAY! :D

It’s not that I don’t like Sheffield. It’s a lovely city, and I’ve had a lot of fun here over the past few years. I’ve made some great friends, and had some great experiences. It’s just time for me to move on and start a new adventure in my life.

I’m going to look for an apartment up in Newcastle on Wednesday, so hopefully I find somewhere nice to live :) I’m actually really excited about moving to Newcastle. I’ll be back around all my old IRL friends who I’ve known since I was like 12 years old.

I miss everyone from back home. I feel like I haven’t seen most of them in SO long. Hopefully when I move up to Newcastle I’ll see a lot more of them all, as we’ll be living really close to each other again.

I miss this girl especially;

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It makes me sad that we’re not as close as we used to be. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be as close to anyone else ever again. Maybe I will; but she was the best friend anyone could ever ask for, and she’ll forever be my favourite person in the world.

Here’s one of my favourite pictures of us together. It’s not a great picture, but remembering what was happening as this picture was being taken always makes me smile :)

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I’ve been feeling really down the past couple of days. I think it’s just because I had such an amazing time while I was in New York, and now that I’m back home… life seems kind of dull.

Things will pick up soon though. I’m travelling up to Durham tomorrow, so I’m sure I’ll feel better once I get back home :)

Johnny <3


Anonymity is nice

I wrote this following post on April 1st, and it’s been sitting as a draft in my wordpress account ever since. I’m not sure why I never posted it back then, but I’m going to post it now. So here you go…

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I signed up for a tumblr account last night.

I decided it would be nice to have a place where I can just be totally honest, and say whatever I like without worrying what people will think. It’s not that I can’t be honest in this blog, or on twitter, or in my youtube videos, but sometimes I feel like I have to censor certain things I say, or hold back from saying something I want to, because I feel like it’s too personal to share with the hundreds/thousands of people who might see it.

When I first signed up to youtube and started making videos, I liked the fact that I could be completely myself. Nobody had any expectations of me, because no one knew me. It’s rare to have that feeling, because out there in the “real world” you always have people around you who expect you to be a certain way. Family, friends, teachers, classmates, work colleagues, and so on. You feel pressure to conform to social norms, or popular opinions of how people should think and act. Then you come on to youtube, and nobody knows who you are, or what you’re like, so you can completely be yourself. There’s no one pressuring you to conform.

Then I started getting lots of subscribers, and making friends on the site, which is obviously awesome, and I love the fact youtube has given me this huge audience to share my thoughts with, but at the same time it means I’m back in that place where I feel people have certain expectations of me.

That’s why I thought I would set up this tumblr account. It’s just going to be for me. I’m never going to link to it on any of my existing online profiles. I’ve chosen an obscure name for the account — not just johnnydurham19 or johnnydurham or pumpkinsplat or something people would recognise as me. So now I can just post whatever I like, and not worry about people reading it, because no one knows about it.

You might ask why even bother setting it up if I’m not going to tell nobody about it? Why not just keep a personal diary?

Firstly, because I found this awesome tumblr design which I really wanted to use xD

Secondly, I think some of the things I’ll be writing about might be really interesting to read even though the tumblr is anonymous. If some random person stumbled upon it, they might find it interesting, even though they’d have no clue who was writing it.

Finally, I might occasionally link a close friend to a post I make there if I want to share something with them :)

To be honest, I’ve mainly just used the tumblr account to post random pictures that I like and want to catalogue, so I guess there’s no real reason to keep it a secret anymore… but at the same time, I still like having my own little private place on the internet, so I’m not going to link to it just yet ^_^

Johnny <3


Vitamin water

Since traveling to New York, I’ve become obsessed with vitamin water. Especially the dragonfruit flavour. It’s actually the liquefied version of awesome. It’s lush.

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That is all ;)

Johnny <3


Back from New York!

I got back from New York yesterday. It was such an amazing trip!

I won’t be able to do the trip justice by merely writing about it, so instead I’m going to post some pictures with annotations :)

All the pictures are from Sam or Kristen, as I’ve not had mine developed yet.

Yeah, that’s right, I took an oldskool disposable camera with me.

As soon as I get my photos developed I’ll probably post some of them here too though :)

So, here we go…

Jazza and I on a rock in Central Park!

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Alcohol for breakfast :D

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BEER // BLOODY MARYS

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Artsy photo of us on the subway taken by Kristen. I love this picture.

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In Times Square during the day…

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Making a video for fiveawesomeguys :)

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Times Square at night with all the pretty twinkling lights ^_^

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M&M WORLD! so many different flavours to choose from =O

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In nintendoworld!

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My first pinkberry experience… pinkberry sells the most amazing frozen yogurt <3

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In the Apple store by Central Park.

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We look SO PIMP in our shutter shades, right?! xD

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Tessa, Sam and Kristen reppin’ Johnny Durham tees! ;D

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Tessa and Jazza making a video with their wicked-good ukulele skillz…

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…and me playing cameraman for their video :)

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sidenote: I saw fireflies for the first time in my life while we were in the park filming this video which was awesome :D
sidenote2: I got bitten 4 times by insects, which was not awesome :(

We graffitied Sam xD

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Sam took a wonderful picture of the back of my RSS feed t-shirt with Manhattan as the backdrop. I love this photo.

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Jazza and I saying goodbye to Kristen.

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A goodbye brunch with Jazza, Sam, and Jessica (one of Sam’s lovely roommates).

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You might not be able to tell, but this photo nearly killed me… the cup of coffee was the heaviest thing I have ever had to hold up for a photo. That probably isn’t true, but it was tough to hold it up.

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Okay, so that’s all for now. When I get my photos developed I’ll post more pictures and also write about some of the awesome things we did but don’t have pictures of. Like Warped Tour, and the yummy vegetarian places we ate at :D

Oh, also, the new t-shirts designs will be available on the website in the next couple of days. I’ll let you know via my blog / twitter when they go up for sale ^_^

EDIT: I couldn’t wait to get the new t-shirt designs up on the website, so they’re up there available to buy now :D Go check them out at JohnnyDurhamClothing.com

Also, there is a new set of buttons which you can buy if you so wish. They look like this…

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Hope you all like the new tees / buttons! :D

Much love,

Johnny <3


New York, Baby!

OH HAI THERE!

I’m off to New York on Tuesday… I’m so freakin excited! NYC has been number 1 on my list-of-places-to-visit-before-I-die for YEARS, and I’m finally going :D

Boy would it suck if I was to die on the journey there. Hopefully that won’t happen though :P

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oh my golly gosh, i’m actually going to be here ^^ in a couple of days

There’s so many things I want to do while I’m there… I want to see Times Square, go to Central Park, see the Statue of Liberty, eat a pretzel, meet up with Liane, etc etc. Jazza and I made a list of the things we want to do, and I honestly don’t think a week is going to be long enough to do it all… there are just too many awesome things to do there ^_^

I think it would be really cool to keep a video diary while I’m there, or maybe just try to remember to film lots of clips while I’m out and about so I can make a mash-up video when I get back to the UK. So yes, fingers crossed I actually do that. I really do want to try and document the trip somehow.

Talking of “documenting” my life, I’ve started making some private videos on youtube lately. I got the idea from Joe. He makes private videos every now and then which nobody gets to see - they’re just little personal diaries that he keeps for himself to look back on in years to come. I thought it was a cool idea, so I’ve started doing the same thing. Also, I’ve lost all motivation and have been lacking any inspiration to make new youtube videos lately. It’s been over a month since I posted anything on JohnnyDurham19, and I hate when I go this long without making one. I’m pretty sure everyone will just forget about me if I don’t post something soon xD. So by making these private videos for myself, I’m hoping I’ll get back into the swing of making videos and will be inspired to make a decent video worth posting on JD19 :)

In other news, I mentioned recently that I had 3 new t-shirt designs on the way for Johnny Durham Clothing, and they should be ready to go on sale by the end of the month (once I get back from NY).

2 of the new designs will be limited editions… only 100 of each will be made, which is the smallest run I’ve ever done of a single design, so hopefully people will like how limited and special they are :)

Also, I’m using these small batches to try out new things to make the products EVEN BETTER than the existing t-shirts I have on sale. Firstly, all three of the new designs will have a little Johnny Durham logo on the back of the t-shirts (at the top, on the back-neck area). Secondly, although Gildan make really great t-shirts, I thought it would be cool to upgrade and get the designs printed onto American Apparel and/or Continental tees. Both of these brands are the leaders in the world of t-shirts so I’m really excited about teaming up with them for these new designs :)

The main thing I like about the Continental tees (besides the great fitting of the t-shirt) is that the label in the collar is tiny, and only states the size of the t-shirt. There’s no Continental logo on it at all. So instead of it being my design printed on some other company’s t-shirt, it’s like the whole t-shirt becomes my own (until someone buys it from the store and then it obviously becomes theirs :P)

The main thing I like about the American Apparel tees is that it’s freakin American Apparel! Retail stores sell blank AA tees for £13 in the UK, and I’ll be selling them, with my own design on for around the same price… awesome, right?! :D

Here are the 2 limited edition tees:

DEAD BLOB TEE

- Limited Edition of 100
- Grass Green unisex American Apparel t-shirt
- Sizes from XS to XL

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How did the blob die?! Who knows?!
Perhaps a piano dropped out of the sky, killing him instantly.
Maybe he fell out of a fifth storey window.
Did an ice cream van run him over?! =O
We’ll never know.
Feel free to make up your own reason for how he died though ;)

SMILE TEE

- Limited Edition of 100
- Black unisex Continental t-shirt
- Sizes from S to XL

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One thing I’ve noticed from wearing my “I LIKE GIRAFFES” and my “MEAT SUCKS” t-shirts is that whenever you have bold writing on the front of your t-shirt, almost everyone you walk past in the street will discreetly (or sometimes obviously) read what it says… and it’s fun seeing their reactions to it!

Now, with this design, the writing on the t-shirt actually speaks to those people who are randomly passing you by in the street. Will they smile at you, or just give you a look of confusion? If you get your hands on one of these limited 100 tees then let me know :P

The final design isn’t going to be limited, because I personally love it too much to only make a certain amount of them xD. It’s super geeky. I’m hoping people will still like it though ^_^

RSS feed tee

- Orange unisex Continental t-shirt
- Sizes from S to XL

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(Thought I’d show you the front/back mockup for this one, so you can see what the Johnny Durham label will look like… sorry it’s so small and a bit blurry)

Oh, and I’m busy trying to organise a very exciting free prize to giveaway with a few of these RSS t-shirts, which I’ll talk about nearer the time of the launch… but yes, IT’S VERY EXCITING! :D

Sorry for the marathon blog post! If you read all of this then I love you dearly! <3

NEW YORK HERE I COME!

Johnny <3