When Words Blend Shop

Welcome to my tiny little shop ~

When Words Blend’s Tee Collection is a series of statement shirts that I designed myself — all inspired by my old poems, blog posts, arts, and just random things I love. I I hope you can find something here that resonates with you too.

Initially, I wanted to make a collection for mental health matters to help end the stigma. If you have been a reader here for a while, you would know how open I am about my mental state. Though, I realized that words are too powerful to limit the designs at that. I talk about many things here on my blog and I want my shirts to reflect that—may it be the simple things that keep us going or grandest scheme of things.

You see, just like how we all have our stories to tell, these shirts have their own too.

Navigator

This is inspired by one of my poems, Her 轉. There are too many places we wish to travel to, places we tag on our social media posts. Still, there are many times that we still find ourselves lost – literally and figuratively. We navigate life with little to no clue about what we are doing. We are all just learning the process as we go—navigators trying to go somewhere, anywhere.

Happy

I love the written words, even they are in different languages. One of the things that I often hear in Korean dramas and KPOP idols is 행복해 (hengbokhe) meaning “I’m happy”. We can’t always be happy but we can always try to be, so I went for 행복하자 (hengbokhaja) instead. It means “Let’s be happy”.

Live

I once wrote an article in Thought Catalog entitled I Want To Live. When this was published, I received an email from someone named Josh. The last part of the message says: I’m sorry that I can’t rid you of your demons. I hope that one day you find peace and happiness and I truly hope that you live. I will live, Josh. Let’s live.

Illness

Mahirap kalaban ang sarili. I always say this. Everyday, it is tiring to fight your brain and convince it to move and do better. People are all about ‘mental health matters’ until they see the ugly parts of it. It makes me sad seeing people turn away when they are already directly affected by these mental illnesses. If you are one of those people who also see it in the eyes of the people around you, please know that you are not your illness. You are so much more. Maybe they just do not know how to deal with it, but I’m hoping that if we continue to talk about these issues, we can all be educated and be more compassionate. Here’s my attempt to help end the stigma.

Moonchild

I have lots of stories about the moon. I have lots of written pieces for it. So I thought it would be nice to come up with something for the ever so beautiful lune. Also, I really love the song moonchild by RM. One of the lines that give me so much comfort is, “it’s okay to shed a tear but don’t you tear yourself.”

Saturn

I love anything celestial, and as strange as it sounds, I use astrology for self-awareness. Saturn is the planet of restrictions and limitations and it is my chart ruler. So if there’s inconvenience, I always say “f*ck Saturn” just because. Just some sort of release, I guess. So if you are mad or annoyed, do not project to others. Say “I swear to %#$^!& Saturn”. I’m sure Saturn doesn’t mind. Hahaha!

Coffee

I love coffee and poetry and this piece is the combination of both. Coffee & You is a poem I wrote in June 2017.

Mooncat

I lost my cat last year, in between my grandmother’s hospitalization (stroke) and the lockdown. It felt like everything happened too fast then that I don’t know if I was able to really processed the whole thing. So why not make something to remember my cat, right? My cat used to always watch the moon with me at midnight to 2am-ish so that is how the design came about. This is for all the cat moms.

No

Originally, it’s a line from one of my poems that says: “It was a house filled with withered flowers; it was nobody’shome.” Arguably, home can be a place or a person. I keep hearing others say that home is where your heart is. But I also thought, do we even feel at home with ourselves or in our own skin? And that’s how I thought of the design. You must protect your home, yourself, set boundaries, say no.

Am

Humans are multifaceted. We can be many things at once. I thought of this design while thinking “who am I?”. I’m also wondering if someone on the streets see you wearing this, will they think of a word/adjective to describe you or themselves?

Eight

This is actually my artwork inspired by Eight – IU, SUGA.

How to Order

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✶ Item/s will be shipped 7 days after your payment date

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