[rare-e-tees]

then there's the fact that a lot of my shirts are plays on words. if someone want to forego my design and just upload the same text

I have a similar problem. I am not a real artist - I do layout and design. One thing you might try is buying a clip-art package. I have one that only cost about $25 with 300,000 pictures and photos. I use them to add graphics to my "word" shirts, so they don't have a plain text look.

You would be surprised what you can do with some fancy borders and accent pictures instead of having to start from scratch.

And don't forget digital photos. I have a picture of a porta-potty that I took during road construction on my street and I already have 4-5 smart-alec taglines for it that I am developing.

hope that helps.