Gonna keep it short and simple for this post. I added five new beanies to The Hat Pit. Go check 'em out.

I ran out today to pick up some new yarn supplies for the Top Dawg Beanies I'm making.  Some colors are old and some colors are new but they are all going to make some really cool looking hats.  Some of the new colors include Paprika, Light Taupe, Antique Taupe, and Greybeard which is a darker color grey than I have had in stock.  I know those of you who keep asking for a darker grey will be happy about that.  I tried to pick a lot of natural, earthtone colors when I went out for my supplies so I have a lot of lighter tones such as Linen, Ivory, and Antique White which are going to make some great accents against all the other colors.  I some browns, some more black because I always need black, and I also got some greens and reds such as Forest Green, Mid Green and Cranberry.  Oh and don't let me forget the blues that I got also.  One of them is a new blue color... but the name of it escapes me right now and I'm too lazy to go dig it out of my storage box LOL.  I am imagining some really awesome hats coming out of this new yarn batch.

I got my rubber stamp that I ordered from rubberstamps.net today and I must say I'm not really pleased with it too much but I must stress that it is not rubberstamps.net's fault.  I ordered a 1 inch size stamp which stamps out almost perfectly although I did have to do a little extra trim work with my scissors on it to remove some edging that appeared when pressing the stamp on the paper.... but for what I had planned to do with the stamp I just don't think this one is going to work out for me.  I had planned on making some refrigerator magnets, but the text on this stamp is too small and too hard to work with to make a clear impression from the stamp.....

So I went back to the drawing board in my bootleg copy of Photoshop 6 and made up a new stamp image in a 2X2 inch size and I am going to order a 2 inch stamp to see if it might work better.  I will report back on my refrigerator magnet stamp project later when I get the bigger stamp.

I've just added a new beanie to The Hat Pit.  It is another metro urban striped hat.  This one is the Colton Atlanta Cruzr Beanie.  The colors in this hat are Soft Blue, Royal Blue, and Brown... but of course you may choose three of your favorite colors to customize this hat as your own design.  The colors in this hat were chosen by a previous customer for a custom order.  I love doing custom hats like this.

These new Top Dawg Beanies I am creating are so awesome!!  I couldn't help myself but to show off another one.  This one is done in yellow, grey mist, and dark olive.  I am having so much fun mixing up color combinations.  I've got more great looking hats to show off so keep checking back or subscribe to this blog for updates to keep up on the new stuff I add to The Hat Pit.

Here is another sneak peek at my new Top Dawg Beanies I'll be adding to The Hat Pit soon.  I am absolutely loving these new hats.  They are so soft and comfortable.  I am currently making up a big batch of these in solid colors and 3 color stripes.  I'll get a picture of a bunch of them together soon and post it for you guys.  These hats are looking awesome!!

Here is a sneak peak at the new Top Dawg Beanies that are coming to your favorite hat shop - The Hat Pit. The phrase "top dawg" means to be the best. This beanie style is one that has been one of the most popular crocheted hat styles for men for more than a decade. I started making these in the late 90's after I bought a similar hat that was manufactured overseas from American Eagle. This hat style is one of my favorites to wear and make and I am looking forward to making lots of these in all of my best colors for you. You are going to see lots of these over the next few weeks in solid colors and stripes. This will be one of my customizable hat styles so you'll be able to order these hats in your favorite colors. Be on the look out for these in the shop soon. Also you can subscribe to this blog or add this blogs feed to your favorite feed reader to keep up on new items as they are added.

You know, when I saw a staff member over at CMFADS blantantly call one of it's customers a jackass in it's users forum I said to myself "Dude (that's me), that's not a good way to treat your customers if you want them to spend money in your advertising network".... You know what.... you call your brother a jackass... you can call your friend a jackass.... but you don't call a customer a jackass.... period!!! You just don't do that. And you know what I thought about leaving that ad network that day but I didn't. I thought maybe that staff member was just having a bad day..... that was until the experience I had with that staff member today who runs this website.

As you guys know I have recently started out on this new domain (www.hatpit.com) for my hat shop. Some of you will know that I was advertising my old website (www.hotdavid.com) which was previously home to David's Hat Factory on the CMFADS network. That domain and name for my shop has since changed. With that change I had been talking to a staff member at CMFADS to start getting the word in that I was making changes. I was advised that CMFADS only allows store type websites into it's network for activities limited to purchasing network ad's or campaign ad's.... now this was all fine for me since that is all I had planned to do in the first place...... I won't even mention that these fool's had been allowing me to operate as a publisher (with an ad widget on my previous site) and as a advertiser at the same time with a STORE SITE.

Anyway I was all ready to submit my new website, and I had done so and was waiting for it to get approved so that I could buy some advertising for it..... until this happened...... I got an email from the staff member who I mentioned had so rudely called another customer a jackass..... and this is what I posted back to him on their forum.

***************************************

To Turnip: What's the attitude about? Good way to run your customers away!



Your site: The Hat Pit was rejected.


The following reason was given: You created 3 alerts for something that clearly is not a blog? In what way is a storefront a blog?


If you have any queries about this, please create an alert: /member/alerts/new


Thanks,


The CMF Ads Team


No I will not create another alert for you to privately spout out some piss poor attitude at me dude. Aren't you the one who not so long ago called another one of your customers a JACKASS.... yes you were... in this thread... http://www.cmfads.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3960&highlight=jackass - - - you seem to have some really not so very nice ways of handling customer service.

I created 3 alerts because I was anxious to spend a little money to advertise in this network and because I wasn't even sure the alerts were getting through. Now, don't jump down my throat about that by sending me emails with snotty notes like you did. Step up your game a little bit there top dawg and handle those alerts quicker and you won't have multiple alerts hitting you in the face. Ok?

I have spoken to another staff member who told me that my website (www.hatpit.com) which indeed is a store site would be suitable for purchasing network ad's or single ad purchases on...... but not suitable for running a widget on....... and never once did I say that it was a blog..... so with the understanding that I could advertise that site but not run a widget I entered it so that I could start advertising it. I have another site at http://hatpit.blogspot.com/ which is the blog I'm using for that site and one that I have not had a chance to enter into the system here yet..... I was going to do that after I got my store site added in and perhaps got a network ad on....... but I'm opting to reconsider that now.

Here is a screen shot from a previous alert I had with Ben (Top Ten) - Read the second passage in the image....... Notice where he say's "Otherwise it's just a store. But it would be fine to use for campaigns or network ads". ???


You know what..... just nevermind it all.  Please delete everything I have associated with this ad network.  You can keep the $4.49 I have in my account.... Yes I know that amount is not a lot but with the attitude you had with me today you sound like you need it more than I do.  I don't need to, nor do I care to spend my advertising expenses on a network who has staff members who act like children and can't get their act together on their policies and communications regarding those policies.  I am finished with CMFADS.  Maybe your little mommy blogs have patience for crap like this but I don't. Goodbye.

********************************************

And so I end this post with a warning to anyone who may be considering spending any advertising money to advertise your blogs or websites with CMFADS.... You really need to decide if their nasty attitudes are worth spending your hard earned money on before you invest in whatever they are trying to do.

I am not one to bash anyone, most especially someone who I had high hopes of doing business with but you know what I think this is a good decision for my small business even though I did like their $10 network ads.  They screwed up, not me :)

I've just added a new beanie to the shop over at The Hat Pit.  This is one of my metro urban striped beanies.  I call it the Avedis Atlanta Cruzr Beanie.  If your wondering, Avedis is an Armenian name which means glad tidings.  I thought that was pretty cool.  The colors in this hat are terra cotta, white, and brown.  I think it's a cool color combo for the guy who is into deep earth tone colors.  This also is one of the hats I have available for you to customize.  You can order this one in the colors I've created it in or you can choose from these awesome colors to design your own custom cruzr beanie.

I would like to say thanks to everyone who has signed up for email updates to The Hat Pit Beanie Blog.  I got 10 subscribers in just a couple of days.  I would love more so if you haven't signed up for email updates powered by feedburner please do so and if you like you can also follow me on twitter for all the latest news on new items and contests at The Hat Pit.

I love rubber stamps.  So I thought it would be fun to order one so that I could make some refrigerator magnets to send out with my orders, give away as freebies, and stamp on my packages that go to the post office.

I created this magnet and ordered it from rubberstamps.net which is a company I have used before to order some other stamps that I've made in the past.  If you have a need for a custom rubber stamp then I highly recommend them for your stamp needs.  They offer stamps in many sizes from 1 inch square on up to huge 6 inch stamps.  I personally like the 1 inch to 2 inch sizes.  The stamp I ordered is a 1 inch stamp and I cannot wait to get it to do some stamp work with it.  I will be offering some free hat pit refrigerator magnets with this design very soon if I find the quality of the stamp is suitable (which will totally depend on how well I designed it).  I'm a little worried about the text portion because it looks a little blurry on the image and they carve the stamp precisely the way you submit it and from past experience their stamps are 100% accurate.  Let's hope it turns out well.

Oh I forgot to mention that the total cost of this stamp including shipping was only $8.90 and since I am in the business of creating custom made items I think this is a very cool and low price for a custom made stamp.  Thank you rubberstamps.net!!

THIS CONTEST WAS A FLOP! NOBODY ENTERED LOL :-(

If you follow me on twitter @madhatter7zero then you may know that recently I tweeted about having a contest to give away a free beanie and possibly some other cool prizes from The Hat Pit. Well I am very anxious to have my first contest so here we go.......
This is going to be a fan sign submission contest. I want some really cool fan signs from my followers on twitter that I can post over at The Hat Pit to show my site visitors that The Hat Pit is the most awesome place on the planet to shop for handmade hats and beanies for men.

There will be 3 winners and 3 prizes given away for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. I will be writing your twitter names on a piece of paper and drawing for the prizes.


First place prize: 1 beanie of choice from The Hat Pit, and 1 Hat Pit T-shirt.

Second place prize: 1 beanie of my choosing, and 1 Hat Pit T-Shirt.

Third place prize: 1 beanie of my choosing, and 1 Hat Pit T-shirt.


All you have to do to enter the contest is tweet on twitter about this contest and submit a fan sign. That's it! That is all you have to do. There is no purchase necessary to play in this contest.

If you don't know what a fan sign is just google it.... but basically you grab a sheet of paper and you write something like "I Love The Hat Pit @ www.hatpit.com" on it and then you take a picture of yourself holding that paper with your note on it.... and that is how you make a fan sign.

The deadline for your fan sign submission will be Monday, May 31st, 2010. After that date no more submissions for the contest will be accepted, although you may still submit your fan signs to be added to the collection.

Follow the steps and rules below to enter the contest.

• 1. If your not following me on twitter then go there now and follow me!
• 2. Make your fan sign and make it a good one.
• 3. You may write your twitter name on your fan sign.... something like "@blahblahblah likes The Hat Pit" and you must write The Hat Pit's website address - WWW.HATPIT.COM - on your sign.
• 4. Your fan sign photo image must be at least 1024 X 768 pixels in size, but the bigger the better.... in fact use the highest resolution your camera will allow. I may want to print your fan sign (seriously) and hang it on my studio wall for inspiration and motivation.
• 5. Got your fan sign ready to submit to me? Not so fast yet buddy!! You need to tweet the following message to all of your twitter followers to let them know about the contest: @madhatter7zero Make a fan sign for The Hat Pit and win a free beanie and t-shirt. http://bit.ly/aqe9Sw
• 6. Finished tweeting? Great!!! Now attach your fan sign photo to an email and send it off to thehatpit @ gmail dot com with the following information: Your first name and your twitter name. It would help if you put in your subject line "Fan Sign Contest". It will help me process your entry faster.
• 7. BONUS!! - Post your fan sign on your blog and blog about this contest and I will add your twitter name two times to the drawing to increase your chances of winning. That means your name could possibly be drawn twice and you could win two prizes. Be sure to send me a link to your blog so that I can check it out when you submit your fan sign to me.

And that's it!

Remember the deadline for your fan sign submission is on Monday, May 31st, 2010.

The drawing will be on Teusday, June 22nd, 2010.

Ok what are you waiting for? Go make your fan sign!

I am finally getting around to setting up an official blog for The Hat Pit and this is it. Welcome!!

For those of you who don't know, The Hat Pit is the new spin off of David's Hat Factory which was a hat shop I operated for about two years online starting sometime in 2008. Well it is now 2010 and I've decided that it was time to step up my game a little bit and really put this business into motion..... but I'll save that story for another post when I have more time to write.

For now I would just like to welcome you to this new blog and let you know that this is where you can keep up on all of the latest news concerning my new hat shop - The Hat Pit.