Mini Review: Waterbottle and Mug Printed Through Shutterfly

For those of you living under a rock, or just new to making your own merchandise, Shutterfly is photo printing service that prints your images on a variety of products including bags, books, bottles, and more.  They recently had a 40% off sale, so I ordered some Nattosoup paraphernalia- bags (which haven't come in yet), a coffee mug, and a waterbottle.  Even with the discount, I couldn't afford to sell items like this at my table, but they also offer high quality prints and photobooks at fairly reasonable rates.

My waterbottle and mug were packaged fairly well- the mug in styrofoam and the bottle in a cardboard box within the larger shipping box, and I was fairly impressed with the printing quality.  The images aren't stickers, they're printed onto the products, and the colors are bright and vibrant.

The online editor is annoying to use, the crop for images is scaling and here's towards photography, so you don't get to really select a crop that works for you if you work in odd aspect ratios.  If you come with your images already correctly sized, there shouldn't be much hassle.

The waterbottle's scew on cap has a plastic gasket to prevent leaking, and a carbiner with a key ring.  There's no permanent Shutterfly branding.  You can select the bottle color on the website- I thought I picked a light blue, but apparently I picked white.

The mug allows you to select your interior and handle color in addition to your exterior color, which is a nice option, an has a Shutterfly logo on the bottom of the mug.

Without a coupon, I would say Shutterfly's services are out of my budget , but if you have Bitcoins to spend, Gyft sells Shutterfly giftcards.  By watching Slickdeals, I was able to splurge a little.  A branded waterbottle could be a useful present to a friend who does conventions.