Oakland Rooftop Photoshoot

I drove to Oakland last Sunday to do a photoshoot with Qiana and Laura. There was no way I was going to make Laura model new jackets in the 95 degree Sacramento heat.

I didn't have any locations in mind, and Laura and Qiana couldn't think of anywhere that had easy parking access or lack of people. So after wasting gas and driving pointlessly around Oakland for half an hour, we went back to Laura's apartment and just climbed up to her roof to do the pictures.

The new pictures turned out great! I love the view from her apartment. We could see the sun setting over San Francisco along with the Golden Gate Bridge. I'll only make you look at two of the sunset pictures I took:

The next pictures are of all the new items that I just added to the Deranged Designs website. There are four new jackets (made by the brand Carmin) plus a couple pairs of leggings and some striped sweaters. All but the plaid leggings are available in sizes small, medium, and large. You can find them on the front page under the New/Featured items section: http://store.derangeddesigns.com/

Two-piece separating jacket: unzip the zipper at the waist to turn it into a shrug and a skirt! $60

Faux leather biker jacket with grommet and lacing details, $75

Striped sweater, $28

Lined faux fur leopard jacket, $65

Military-style shrug with brass-colored buttons in front and on the sleeve cuffs, $28

Striped sweater dress, $28

Plaid leggings, $9.50

Vinyl-look leggings are back in stock for $9.50! This picture was taken back in January 2010, when I first started selling the leggings.

After we were finished with the photoshoot, Laura and I went to a restaurant that sold delicious deep-dish pizza and giant beers. Perfect ending to an exhausting day.

Ok that's a lie, after that I had to drive an hour and a half back to Sacramento. I hate that drive.

Sacramento Stuff

Blog posts that don't really have to do with Deranged Designs will now be titled "Sacramento Stuff".

We have two shows coming up at Casa de Chaos:

The Friday show was originally going to be at the Fire Escape in Citrus Heights, but they suddenly decided to stop having shows. It's too bad, because they were all-ages AND had a bar, AND sold Pabst tall cans for super cheap! I actually enjoyed going to shows there, even though I don't usually like bigger venues. RIP yet another Sacramento venue.

We had a show here last Saturday but I didn't post anything about it. The bands that played were Okami, the Yoohoos, Julie the Bruce, the Croissants, and the Crunchees. My favorite band that night was the Yoohoos. They are a visiting band from Germany. They came over here a couple weeks ago with my friend Kian, who lived in Germany for a year. I loved how the singer kept yelling out, "This is the BEST PLACE EVER!" I'd have to agree, it is definitely my favorite place to see a show, and I love when out of town (or out of country!) bands are so happy to play here.

Mickie Rat posted the lyrics to his Casa de Chaos song up on Facebook today. His song says it all. Living here can drive me crazy sometimes, but every time we have a basement show I feel like I'm 15 again and its my first punk rock show. I hope they get the recorded version of this up sometime soon. Hearing the Secretions practice it in the basement always puts me in a good mood.

there's a place that you should go
If you wanna see a punk rock show in Sacramento
just take the light rail to midtown
then crack a beer and take the alley down

to the middle house on *** between * and *
its gonna be a punk rock n roll adventure for me and you
we’ll hang out on the porch and drink all night
we wont go to sleep until we see the morning light

I wanna go (let’s go!)
down to the basement for a punk rock show
I’m gonna go (let’s go!)
down to the basement for a punk rock show

from 92 to 95
it was the P house where Secretions and Phlegmings would thrive
we all had fun cutting loose
with now absent friends like Curtis Freitag and Mikel Gius

then we came back again in two thousand and three
once again it became where the punks should be
since then Annie and Reggie keep it going strong
the Sacto Pyrate Punx keep the shows going on

I wanna go (let’s go!)
down to the basement for a punk rock show
I’m gonna go (let’s go!)
down to the basement for a punk rock show

beers and punx and drunx and songs
drink up now and sing along
sleep upstairs if you get too smashed
there’s always a floor where you can crash
pick up your empties so the place stays neater
please don’t smash the water heater

I wanna go (let’s go!)
down to the basement for a punk rock show
I learned all that I know (let’s go!)
down in the basement at a punk rock show

The line about the water heater always makes me crack up. We haven't had a mosh pit water heater disaster since the Pyrate Punx built a wooden cage around it, but I still get paranoid when things get extra rowdy in the basement. 

Also, almost forgot, I have a picture from the Pyrate Punx yard sale fundraiser thing that I posted about a couple weeks ago.

Aren't we adorable?

I'm going to blame this picture on a severe case of ADD. Either in the photographer or in everybody else.
 

$2.50 Flat Rate Shipping for all USA, Canada Orders

I'm testing out new shipping rates this month. All U.S. and Canada orders will have a flat rate of $2.50 shipping on their orders. People in other countries will have mostly the same shipping rates as before, but I am reducing the rates for larger orders. International orders will have a maximum $14 shipping rate, no matter how many items you put in your shopping cart. To see the detailed international rate table, go to the Ordering Info page on my website.

If these new shipping rates work out well, I will not be changing them back to the original rates. I will be raising prices on some of the heavier items that I sell to make up for the low flat rate (for example, hoodies and hair dye) but my goal is for total order prices to remain about the same as they were before the change. I'm doing this because it is frustrating to shop online and be surprised at a high shipping rate when you are ready to check-out. It can be expensive to ship items that weigh over a pound ($9 to $10 now!) so I am including part of the average shipping price in the individual item prices.

I also plan to offer more shipping options soon. I will probably add Express Mail for USA orders and Global Priority mail for international orders. My current shipping options are pretty arbitrary and confusing. The only reason they are the way they are is because I first made my website in 2007 and I kind of threw everything together all at once and ignored shipping options until now. (Excuses, excuses, I know, it's been four years and I should have started fixing this ages ago!)

I've spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how to offer flat rate shipping on EVERYTHING without overcharging customers or undercutting myself, so I'll shut up about this soon. If this system works well, you probably won't hear any more about it. Except, of course, when oil prices go up again and the post office raises their prices again and global trade becomes too expensive and we are all forced to start growing our own cotton and making our own clothes with vintage treadle sewing machines and our economy reverts back to pre-industrial revolution times and we can no longer wear stretch fabrics with spandex because IT HAS OIL IN IT TOO and no really, I'll shut up now. I'm typing this up several days before I make the actual website changes and it's getting late here.

Besides, we all know the zombies will take over before our oil supply runs out!

Garage Sale: PyratePunx Fundraiser

I'm helping out with a Sacto Pyrate Punx yard sale in Davis this weekend.

Decription from the facebook event page:

Time	Saturday, September 3 · 8:00am - 4:00pm
Location	527 G st. Davis
Created By	Sacto Area PyratePunx
More Info	Sacto Area PyratePunx wake up early..... Sacto Area PyratePunx are having a Fundraiser for a new P.A. and to help out Hazmat! Hazmat is the PyratePunx headquarters and amazing All Ages D.I.T. (Do It Together) venue in Oakland, CA. PyratePunx are helping out touring bands with food, beds, and shows all around the world, and we want to do more!: Recording, Printing, Touring Van Rental... We will have: Music, Baked Yummies, Lemonade, Merch, and random items from all of our homes!

I will be bringing anything I have to sell for $5, $10, or $15. I tend to stockpile clothing (surprising, huh?) so I will have a lot of stuff for sale. Most of it will be handmade items that aren't up on my website and random items that I have picked up one way or another. I'll be donating a percentage of my sales to the Pyrate Punx Haz-Mat fundraiser.

I've had a lot of fun at the Haz-Mat in the past. They put on some great shows. Some of my friends who lived there also let me do a Deranged Designs photoshoot there in January 2010. The pictures are in this photo gallery in my Flickr album.