A few weeks ago I received an email from the peeps Threadless that literally made me squeal with joy on the El. To paraphrase, it said, “Hey Natalie, I see that you are awesome. We at Threadless are also awesome. Perhaps you’d like to be a Threadcakes judge this year?” After I got done making all the strangers on the train with me read the email I replied with an enthusiastic yes and made several dozen excited Twitter and Facebook updates.

A few weeks later they emailed me again to say they were releasing a shirt soon that they thought I’d be perfect to model. When I saw the mock up for Zombie at Tiffany’s I knew it was a match made in t-shirt heaven.

I’m incapable of new people without baking them something, and I wasn’t about to walk into the Threadless office with some weak ass cupcakes. So I decided to make some Vegan Pancake Cupcakes. I got home from work the night before photo day only to discover that my maple flavoring had leaked all over my spice drawer. Awesome! Now what?

I assessed the ingredient situation – a little iffy since I’d just baked three dozen cupcakes for Teno’s Super Mario birthday party. I had cocoa powder, exactly 12 Trader Joe’s Joe Joe’s cookies,  a small amount of natural peanut butter, soy margarine and rice milk – basically everything I  needed to make chocolate cupcakes, peanut butter frosting and ganache. So I threw a Joe Joe’s cookie in the bottom of each cup and poured the batter on top. After the cakes cooled, I filled each one with peanut butter frosting and topped that with ganache. Then each one got a small swirl of more peanut butter frosting on top. I had Tony run a taste-test and they passed – thus, Madame Cocoa Cookiebottom was born, and a glorious vegan cupcake she was!

The next day I felt like Ricky on Silver Spoons. I’m pretty sure they have a mini train running through the Threadless office there and if you take a ride, unicorns feed you ice cream. Everyone I met was funny and cool and for once, I was wearing the least stupid t-shirt in the room. (And by stupid, I mean awesomely stupid.)

Anyway, the photos went snap-snap, the cupcakes went munch-munch, and I walked away with one more thing to add to my resume – Threadless t-shirt model.

But it’s not all about me, kids. Because the f’n rad t-shirt that I filled out in a way only a girl who eats Cupcake Pebbles for dinner can do dropped on the Threadless homepage today and to celebrate – I’m giving two away.

To enter, head over to Threadless and peruse the goods. Come back here and leave a comment about your favorite Threadless shirt. Random.org and I will pick two winners – one of you will get this here awesome t-shirt and a $25 gift certificate for even more Threadless swag and the other will win the Zombie at Tiffany’s shirt. I’ll announce the winners one week from today – 4/21. Good luck!

The contest is now closed – thanks to everyone who played and congrats to Danielle and Jessica!