What are we up to?

It’s been a fun week of getting stuff setup. Ashley and I spent yesterday playing with the embroidery machine. We had a lot of fun playing with different things, and learning some of the frustrations with Embroidery. Here are a few things that we did on an old jacket.

 

Today I got the screen printing press out and going. Cleaned things up, and getting it ready. I have dozens and dozens of screens so I just grabbed one that hadn’t been used yet, and I have to admit that I liked it. Gavin came out and we got the belt drying going, along with the flash cure unit. Got our shirts and tried our first print. I think they turned out pretty good.

We pretty much have everything up and running now. Just need to figure out how to make everything fit comfortably.

Just finished up some direct to garments prints for a local company. They wanted something for Halloween. They all decided to look like contestants in the Price is Right game show. Everyone had their own shirt color, with their name tag on it. They turned out pretty good.

We got our catalog in digital form. We’ll have some in print hopefully next week. Until then brows all you want here.

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My daughter Braylee, has been begging me to make her and her girl cousin shirts. I kept telling her that I would, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Well today her cousin came over so I had to do it. What’s the point in having Malad Tees if you can’t make your daughter a shirt.

They sat down with me and we came up with some ideas, and ended on this one. I put it together for them. They picked out the fonts, and the colors. Even what arrow they wanted. I got them printed, and they are running around like the two happiest girls ever.

I’m glad that they are at the age when something so simple makes them happy. When she is a teen, she might want something name brand and fancy. But for now you would have thought I just spent a $1,000 on each of them.

Do you have an idea you want put on a shirt? Let me know. It’s about $10 a side. I should be getting white ink in next week so I can print on colored shirts. I’ll post it here when it comes.

I’ve been asked by a few people about printing on dark shirts. Right now my DTG printer is out of white ink. I have some coming, but until then I can only print on light colors, or only in black. They way a DTG works is that it drops ink onto the fabric, and then gets absorbed. If that fabric is already has color, then it is going to change the color of the ink. To get around that first you pre-treat the fabric, then a layer of white ink is printed first, and then the colored layer. This allows the color to stay on top of the fabric, and not inside of it. Getting the colors to stay true.

It’s a lot more of a process, and white is thicker and makes it so I have to clean the printer more often. The company that owned it before me, never did any white prints for that very reason. The inks that were with it are to thick to use, so I have to get some new stuff.

I think it will be fun to be able to print on any shirt so I’m excited to get the white in so I can start playing with it. It will open up more possibilities.

Screen printing doesn’t have this issue by the way. It is a thicker ink, that is more opaque. It is actually a liquid plastic, that has to be heated and cured. Because of that, it sits more on top of the fabric, and doesn’t change colors. It is better for getting sharp colors on dark fabrics. There is more setup to the process, because a screen has to be exposed before you can use it to print. But ones it is setup, it is faster and the quality is better. So if you want more then 10 shirts it’s probably the way to go.

We got our logo today. I’m really excited about it. I think it looks awesome. I even put it on a shirt really quick. Really looking forward to using it in the future, and to help establish a brand.

We have 5 nieces/nephews getting baptised this year. Three of them this month. So I thought I would make some custom shirts for them. I think they turned out nice.

Do you have a special event that you want to add something unique? Give us a call and we can provide a shirt.

Do you want this shirt with the custom baptism date? It’s yours for $7.00 per side. Let me know the date, and size. I’ll get one printed for you.