Empress Trash
Hey all - it's been another busy couple weeks. Between training my midjourney x titles and making a ton of art, I have been doing the grind. Let's dive right in.
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Over the last couple weeks I have rebuilt my website from scratch after glitch.com decided to shut down killing my build there and not being easy to migrate as they claimed. It left me in a limbo for a couple months of where do I build my website? I was looking at doing independent build with vercel hosting, going back to wix or weebly which I prefered not to, or just relying on the neocities archived one I have built? Either way I knew it was time for a major upgrade and revamp.
Then watching Base Day One and all the things Base had cooking and Shopify in all that saying they will be integrating USDC payment the lightbulb immediately went off ~ build a Shopify store. In one of my many lives in the 42 years I've been on earth, I used to work e-commerce for interior design, fashion and art startups. I really do have a passion for e-commerce, it's gross I know, but the internet enabling free trade for everyone is like a core reason for the internet. So watching the announcement my head started swimming awakening the old merchant beast in me thinking of all the millions of merchants Shopify has, how I could combine drop shipping prints with finely curated home and fashion goods along with all my digital and crypto art and blog and you know just like EVERYTHING I'm doing in one centralized spot for everything Empress Trash like a website should be.
v1 could have probably been built faster, but I think I still brought it all together quickly. V1 featured the styling, overall layout with placeholders, an updated FULL bio co-written with Grok who helped me research myself (which that alone tells you how much I've done to need an AI assistant to do that) AND all the links to all the things which is a lot. While building the foundation to get v1 out, I also was searching for vendors for v2 and beyond.
The first most important vendor for me to find was a printer who drop shipped not just any prints, but high quality limited edition archival prints. I used Grok/Microsoft CoPilot (I bounce between the two so I can't remember exactly which one) to help me search Shopify integrated services for dropshipping telling it my specific needs and the first suggestions from both was Creativehub.io ~ a carbon neutral printer based in the UK who specializes in fine art prints and framing. Not only could they meet the basic needs I was looking for, but also they have where can include a certificate of authenticity, upload an .svg signature to sign prints, and edition tracking since they manage all the shipping.
crypto integrations for shopify tangent ~~
While they didn't require any deposit or payment upfront, they do require a card on file to pay the base cost of printing and shipping when an order comes in while you receive all the payment through shopify. This is a standard pre-crypto setup, but imagine when onboarding to a vendor instead of submitting a credit card for these things, could sign a smart contract auto-splitting sales at the desired percentages/flat rate so everyone gets instantly paid out in this. I used to work for printers in yet another life of mine ~ both a photo studio and fine art print/framing shop ~ and know how much time invoicing takes and the lag in payment can cause some issues if reserves are running low.
Once I set up all payment and shipping settings on my store and in creativehub, I had to upload images for the prints. Yet another point where I was like what if nfts/crypto? Like imagine instead of having to find the file on my computer, I input just a link to the token/coin from any platform and it populates the image also tying the print to the metadata of the token enabling all sorts of cool things like payment splits to holders of a token/nft, token gating to holders only, and a big one is anyone could create a print with the link and try to sell it and if royalties are honored onchain can unlock even more crazy things of permissionless merchandising where the OG artist and even token holders still get paid if someone decides to make an officially derived merch (if they don't include the attribution it can't be marked official then making it bootleg but thats a whole other thing).
BEYOND the crypto possibilities feedback, I love how Shopify has integrated AI into it's building with even having AI build blocks inline in the website, and an AI assistant there to help you navigate Shopify in general and how to get a store runing. The AI integrations into Shopify while have their AI moments of imperfection, overall improved the experience 100x from previously remembering how I worked in Shopify before. From making it quicker to get thru the boring admin stuff to making it super fun to build the site imagining all sorts of cool things like my holographic letters to spice the site up. I applaude Shopify for this update because it really does make building in it easy.
v2 of my website is now live with Limited Edition art prints available. Stay tuned for v3 which will include for sure more merch and prints. Also I'm exploring at integrating AI into my site also to act as a guide/lorekeeper, but idk if that will happen for v3.
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Buy Neon Noir Pin Ups ($NNNR) on vibe.market
This week I stumbled upon again vibe.market cards and with my Neon Noir model on titles.xyz I decided to quick craft a deck of card Neon Noir Pin Ups for fun and to experiment on the platform. Since I learn better by doing, just jumping right in felt like the move. I'm really happy with how the cards have turned out focusing on making not so plastic looking feminine bodies with imperfections and tattooes and through it have learned how the site works mostly.
When releasing a pack on Vibe.market, creators upload the artwork and define the collection's parameters individual card rarities percentage chance upon open is set before, but randomly generated onchain during opening for fairness, rather than manually set upfront for each individual pack. All packs in a collection start with the same low entry pricing via a bonding curve mechanism, where costs increase dynamically as more are purchased allowing early buyers to acquire them cheaply and potentially redeem unopened packs for a refund or profit if the curve rises. Upon opening a pack (with a small randomness fee), the revealed card's attributes, including rarity, foil effects, and condition, influence its value on the secondary market, where rarer cards fetch higher prices.
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I did two different speaking things this week and I wonder why I'm crabby (they drain me with the stress of stage fright haha). Here are links to both for you to listen to at your leisure <3
Thank you for taking the time to read my words -- <3
Until next time, stay real and curious
Empress Trash 🖤
New to Web3? Here Are Some Guides:
Ethereum Foundation: What is Web3?
A beginner-friendly guide to understanding Web3, its decentralized nature, and why it’s reshaping the internet.
A great starting point for artists, collectors, or institutions exploring the world of crypto art, including wallet setup and minting digital art on Tezos.
Getting Started with Art on Bitcoin
Learn how to create, collect, and explore immutable art on the motherchain, Bitcoin, using Gamma’s easy-to-navigate platform.
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