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Become a custom shirt sponsor

Say that you have a business and you would like to get your name out into the community. How can you accomplish that?

You can advertise. Of course that gets pretty expensive when you do lots of it. Newspapers used to be the only game in town for businesses that could not afford radio and TV. A main drawback of ads, especially for small businesses on tight budgets, is that ads often end up in the trash. Message gone. Out of sight, out of mind.

Promotional giveaways are a great alternative to traditional advertising. If the product is useful, like apparel or mouse pads or the trusty calendar, your company name stays in view.

One relatively low-cost way to both advertise and help support entities within your community is to sponsor a fund-raising effort. Here’s how that works:

You would fully or partially finance the printing of, say, 100 t-shirts. Somewhere on the t-shirt there would be a special place for your logo and possibly a slogan.

The rest of the shirt would be printed with the text, graphics, or photos of the entity doing the fund-raising. They would benefit from your picking up the printing costs. They would then sell the shirts and make money for their organization.

As a sponsor, you would get a tax wrte-off. You would also get name recognition from what was printed on the shirt along with recognition that you helped sponsor an organization. Earning a reputation for giving back to the community is a great way to promote your own business as you help another group raise funds. Win-win!

At Creativity On we frequently put together apparel and products where one business entity helps promote a cause or a charity. While it’s usually the charity that approaches the sponsor, we would be happy to help potential sponsors find worthy causes to support.

Promotional products that keep selling

A well-meaning businesswoman thought it would be a great idea for her company to buy a thousand bottles of water to be handed out during a summer festival. The bottles were affixed with labels that included the company branding.

From a “nice neighbor” point of view, free water was a kind gesture to make to the community of thirsty festival patrons. Yet from a promotional products viewpoint, and the intent was promotion, what’s wrong with this picture?

What happens when someone finishes a bottle of water? Right, it gets tossed into the trash… along with all that branding.

A major consideration of an effective promotional item is longevity. How long will it continue promoting? Would the amount of money spent on bottled water be better spent on t-shirts, caps, visors, pens, mugs, or something else?

A good promotional product gets used and seen a lot. An embroidered hat gets lot of use, and each time it’s worn it advertises your business. The same thing holds true for an attractive t-shirt.

Our latest favorite is a printed mouse pad. They measure 9×7.5 inches and we can print any full color graphic on them. Mouse pads are constantly used and seen. Mouse pads come in different thicknesses including thin ones for travel and laptop use.

We will be happy to discuss your options and promotional strategies. Give us a call at (503) 365-1955.

Sue and Steve Show dot com

Sue and Steve Soucy from Vancouver, British Columbia created the Sue and Steve Show with the expressed intention of becoming millionaires on the Internet. They're doing it through a combination of home-made videos that they post online, Internet marketing tools and strategies, and coaching programs they created distilled from top names in Internet marketing.

They have an unusually charming, honest, and down-to-earth style. They're two nice people who struck Josh as folks you'd want to have as friends as well as coaches. (Steve is edgier than Sue, but both have great big hearts and are extremely positive personalities.)

Josh is just completing Sue and Steve's first coaching program, the Sue and Steve Experience, which is one reason why you'll soon be seeing significant improvements in Creativity On's web presence. You can see more about Sue and Steve here (seems to take about 20 seconds to load, but it's worth the wait.) They're also all over Facebook and Twitter.

Sue and Steve represent another aspect of where we all are in time: nowadays virtually anybody can have their own TV show on the Internet and reach thousands of people. This is an incredibly exciting development for small business owners and entrepreneurs. You can have your say however you want to say it and you can handle it all yourself without any media control freaks messing with your message.

At Creativity On we can help with branding. If you have a logo in an ai (Adobe Illustrator) or eps (encapsulated postscript) file format stored on your computer, you are halfway to having a great t-shirt made. Those two formats are vector files, and the great thing about vector files is that you can shrink or enlarge the graphic without any loss in quality.

The Sue and Steve shirt Josh is wearing shows how digital garment printing differs from screen printing. The graphic features gradient color blends (colour for you Canadians) in the golds and blues of the logo. No can do with screen printing.

Thinking of having a photo shirt made?

When you’re thinking about having a photo t-shirt made, here are some important reminders about what we need to achieve best results for you.

The photo should be of the highest quality possible in the size that you wish to print. So, if you want the print to come out 10 inches wide by 8 inches tall, the photo file you send us should measure that size.

Don’t know how big your photo is or what resolution it is? We can quickly tell you. We can also tell you that if the file size of the photo you email us is way less than 500kb, it’s most likely going to be less than great.

Alternatively, if you have access to Photoshop, load up a file and check it out through the Image>Image Size command. In the box that comes up you’ll see the image size and the resolution. We look for 300dpi(dots per inch). (Don’t be tempted to just change the resolution to get 300dpi output if you’re not dramatically reducing the picture size at the same time. It won’t work. You’ll get lessened quality.)

We can usually downsize photos without any problem. The problem comes when you want to enlarge something. Some people assume that they can send us a photo they take off the web and that we can enlarge it to t-shirt printing size. Usually we can’t!

If you take original photographs, set your digital camera to take the highest resolution photos. Some cameras let you shoot in 300dpi; others don’t. Just set your camera for high resolution and it will probably turn out just fine. A photo that shows up as shot in 72dpi but that is like 32-inch wide will downsize into a nice 10” wide, 300dpi photo in Photoshop.

If this technology talk doesn’t make sense to you, just go back to that rule of thumb that if the size of the photo you want printed is much less than half a megabyte (500kb) for a 10-inch wide printed photo, it’s probably going to be a problem.

If that’s the case, we have a couple of solutions. One is to scan a hard copy photo (a print) at the desired print size at 300dpi. In other words, enlarge the photo using your scanner. In this case you'll be making a whole new source file.

A second solution is to turn the poor quality photo into a work of art using a filter in an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter. This can create a very pleasing effect that in many cases can improve the image quality for printing.

Printed t-shirts for all occasions

Here is a sample of a direct-to-garment printed t-shirt idea. Printed shirts of a home for sale!

I bring this to your attention for several reasons. One is that with DTG printing, unlike screen printing, you have access to millions of colors. This photo and the accompanying graphics print beautifully.

The second is the idea of using t-shirts as a promotional medium. It's a great way to attract attention, especially if it's something people are not used to seeing on a shirt. It's the purple cow concept that Seth Godin made famous--you don't expect to see a purple cow or a t-shirt showing off a house for sale.

And third, we can make t-shirts out of many of the photos or graphics you may already have stored on your computer.

We are happy to answer your questions about digital garment printing and offer suggestions on how you can make the impact you want.

Save money on your embroidery

When you have your company logo (or any other artwork) digitized for embroidery, we can use that one file to produce different looks. The same embroidery file was used to render the above two garments. By changing the thread color and of course by the different fabric colors of the garment, we can achieve different appearances.

We are always here to answer your questions and give you suggestions on your embroidery and garment printing projects.

Salem Business Bloggers Network

Josh spent Friday at the kick-off meeting of a brand new group, the Salem Business Bloggers Network. It was organized by Margaret Oscilia (Creative Concepts and Contracting) and Victoria Linton (Lawyers Title in Salem).

This group was fantastic. Melina Tomson shared insights from what seemed to be a very deep well of knowledge on Wordpress.

This was mostly a group consisting of real estate professionals, but the information on blogging applies to many professions. Blogging is the new prospecting for clients.

For me (Josh) the exciting thing about social networking media is that it represents a whole new model of doing business. The old way is to advertise, advertise, advertise using expensive advertising sources such as print ads. The advertising media conglomerates largely controlled the show. They set the prices for ad space, and they could because they were the only game in town.

When it was the only game in town, consumers did benefit. If people wanted to buy a home, they'd go to the newspaper or real estate magazine to see what was available. Or they would go to a Realtor and have that person search the MLS for available homes.

But have you ever tried to get a great feel for a home for sale from a photo that is smaller than postage stamp size? When the Internet came along, suddenly you could search for homes where you could see big photos. You could get a good feeling for what was being sold.

Print real estate advertising has become, I believe, largely irrelevant. The writing is on the monitor.

Blogging is not only a great way to find new clients, but it is also a great way to nurture the relationships you already have. When you come to our blog or Facebook page you can see what we're up to. And it's interactive if you wish it to be. You can leave comments, send us emails, or give us a phone call.

Doing business is changing. Many of the social networking sites and services are free to use. Instead of a postage stamp photo of a house or your particular service, you can create a whole slide show. Not only do you benefit from all the gifts technology gives, but your clients benefit, too. They can get much more information than before and make better choices.

I was so happy to be a part of this group of bloggers. I am excited about the growth that's coming.

Launch your small business with a great look

Get your new small business off to a great start with some fashionable logo attire by Creativity On. With both embroidery and garment printing at your disposal, along with our famed customer service, you'll be good to go wth things you'll feel happy to wear.

Chances are that if you have started a new business, you'll already have invested in a logo design. You will have done this for your business cards, signs, stationery, and possibly a website. We can easily turn vector art into printed t-shirts or sweatshirts.

While any small business person is very mindful of start-up costs, having a good uniform will do several things. First, it will give you more credibility. Showing up at someone's house to perform a service like home cleaning or gardening or carpentry wearing an "official" shirt will give off a better image of your dedication to your business. Clients like that.

It also helps you feel more official. We have watched our customer's eyes light up when thy see what we have created for them. We know they'll feel better in their jobs.

Of course, your logo apparel also acts as advertising for your business when you are out and about. When you go to the bank, the grocery store, or anywhere else, people will see what you do when it's printed or embroidered on your clothing. They may need that service or know someone else who needs that service. People notice things that they have a need for, and you could find yourself attracting new clients that way.

Finally, our clothing is so reasonably priced that it's often cheaper to buy printed or embroidered garments from us than it is to by plain clothing from a store.

Since our direct to garment printing prints in full color, you can often get what's printed on your business card printed on your shirts. If the logo was created in vector art, it can easily be upscaled to a full front or back graphic. With our printing there are no set-up charges as you'll find with most screen printing where there is a set-up charge for each color.

We are very happy to discuss with you our services and how we can help you find the right apparel for your business or group.

Fall is fund-raising season

In autumn people's minds often turn to fund-raising. That is especially true in slower economies when organizations that depend on donations see a drying up of income.

At Creativity On we are very big on giving great prices to non-profits and other fund-raising efforts. We do this for both embroidery and garment printing.

Over the last few months we supplied shirts and other items for the Play for the Cure fund-raising softball tournament in West Salem. The event was a great success for the nonprofit, and they gave us this sweet endorsement:

"This was my first year ordering from Creativity On! I found Jolene easy to work with and willing to listen to my concerns and questions. She promptly answered each phone call and e-mail I directed her way. I was especially pleased that she was willing to order the smaller quantities we needed and had a genuine interest in the success of our event. She had great suggestions when we needed original ideas for fun presentation gifts. The quality of her products is exceptional." (Dianna - Play for the Cure Apparel Coordinator)

We also did shirts and caps for a nonprofit in Lebanon, Oregon. They are in the midst of a fund-raising effort to finance a new skate park for the youth of that town. With our low pricing they can sell shirts at a retail level and make good money for their cause.

Of course, we give great pricing and customer service for all of our customers. We have built a reputation on it.

If your organization is thinking of fund-raising, one great idea to consider is finding one or more corporate sponsors. For their financial contribution, they get a space for their logo on the garment. In turn, their contribution lets your organization reap more profit from garment sales.

We are always happy to discuss with you strategies and techniques for making your fund-raising efforts as successful as you want them to be. Give us a call.

We're on Facebook

We now have our own Facebook business page. Use the link at the top of this blog to go there. Please join!

Embroidery machines whirring

It's a beautiful crisp autumn day here in Salem, Oregon and the embroidery machines are whirring away.

Here is a beautiful rendition of an elk Jolene did for the McKenzie River Ranger District. Did you know that we use macro photography when we show you these embroidery samples because most of them are so small in real life. You'd have to use a magnifying glass to see them in real life this up close and personal.

Photography this close shows off every eensy-weensy imperfection, which at some level may not be a smart thing to do. But if you don't see other companies show you the zoomed in shots, it might be because they're afraid to show their quality. We aren't afraid because we strive for the best quality.

Here's a shirt for your elevator speech

There's still time to get one of our custom printed t-shirts--free!

You can have a lot of fun with this shirt. The open-ended "ask me" offers a huge green light for conversation.

This is great if you are selling something, including a philosophy, religious message, political view, or favorite cause. If you have your "elevator speech" ready when someone asks you, you can engage the questioner in a great conversation.

Here's how to win: Notify us by email at CreativityOn@comcast.net that you want a free shirt. Include the size of shirt you want (S, M, L, XL, or 2XL.) We'll randomly select five winners from all entries received by 9am August 31, 2009. We'll notify the winners personally by email.

New to Creativity On? Visit our website.

Color charts for printing on colored fabric

When a client comes to us wanting to print their graphic on a color fabric, the best way to predict how a certain color will print on a certain color is to print a test color chart on that color. In direct to garment printing, the fabric color makes a great deal of difference to the final product.

People often come up with their logos on a white computer screen page. Their designs are geared toward white backgrounds. Then when they want to print on fabric, they sometimes have to re-think their whole project.

Recently a client came to us with a new business logo that featured a light green title. It worked great when printed on white but when printed on medium gray, the light green print disappeared into the gray. By using our color chart printed on gray, we could choose a darker shade of green that would work.

When designing a logo or a graphic specifically for printing on a colored t-shirt, the best way to test it is to print using an inkjet printer on colored paper that matches the fabric. A less accurate but still useful way is to set a background color in your illustration or image editing program and then blending the top colors and the background colors.

With the color chart we can tweak colors to get better looking results from colors that shifted dramatically from computer file to actual printed product.

Another New Business Goes DTG

The launch of another new business, Makawee Landscape Maintenance, presented us with another opportunity to introduce someone to direct-to-garment (DTG) printing.

In screen printing, the colors of the ink would be solid and opaque. But with DTG, the eco friendly water-based ink interacts with the fabric as you can clearly see here. This adds a rich look to the garment.

Based on the client's design specifications we designed the logo in Adobe Illustrator so that we could easily resize it for many uses from business flyers to business cards and of course apparel. The logo will also be digitized for embroidery.

If you have a small business and you think it's time to get some uniforms made, give us a call. We'll help you step into the right stuff.

An Often-Overlooked Advantage of DTG

One of the distinct advantages of direct-to-garment printing (DTG) is that unlike screen printing, our printer renders gradient blends. In the photo above, the blend is in grayscale.

In screen printing, a logo like this would usually be rendered in black and white without the grays in between. So if you have a nice black, white, and gray graphic, check out your DTG options with us before you commit to screenprinting.

We are always happy to look at your graphic files and tell you what we can do for you.

Play for the Cure

We sent a bunch of printed t-shirts off for this weekend's Play for the Cure. T-shirts were just one of the items we produced for this charitable event. We also produced embroidered vests and totes and printed head and wrist bands.

If your non-profit is into fund-raising efforts with printed or embroidered apparel, give us a call. We like working with you.

Embroidery machines humming

Our machines hummed with activity getting these embroidered polo shirts out for the realtors from Windermere Pacific West Properties who are showing people the great new condominiums at 295 Church Street in downtown Salem.

Another Creativity On Shirt Giveaway

We're doing it again! We're giving away five of our custom printed t-shirts.

You can have a lot of fun with this shirt. The open-ended "ask me" offers a huge green light for conversation.

This is great if you are selling something, including a philosophy, religious message, political view, or cause celebre. If you have your "elevator speech" ready when someone asks you, you can engage the questioner in a great conversation.

This can also provide great fun outside of the world of commerce. Maybe you want to suprise someone with an announcement. Wear a shirt like ths and create your opening. "Ask you what?"

Stand-by for excitement!

Here's how to win: Notify us by email at CreativityOn@comcast.net that you want a free shirt. Include the size of shirt you want (S, M, L, XL, or 2XL.) We'll randomly select five winners from all entries received by 9am August 31, 2009. We'll notify the winners personally by email.

New to Creativity On? Visit our website.

How do we embroider a bag?

Jolene thought you might like to see what embroidering a bag looks like on one of our embroidery machines. In this case the red bag has been loaded on the Tajima machine.

We do various types of duffel bags, tote bags, backpacks, and so on. Often these are requested by companies seeking to outfit their employees with cool embroidered stuff. It's particularly classy for business travel, trade shows, and anywhere else where promoting company image is a high priority.

Of course, we also provide resellers, company stores, and gift stores with these kinds of items. They often make good sellers and are very classy.

Real Estate Photography Tips

If you are a Realtor or are thinking of selling your home (either yourself or with professional help), this is for you.

Unbelievably Bad Real Estate Photos Hall of Fame is a great starting place that I found on the Internet. (Tip: You have to click "run" on the navigation buttons to make the show go.)

For something more serious there's an article for realtors on how photos either help or sink a real estate deal.

I also wrote an article on real estate photography tips for our Creativity On website.

The photos above are from my personal collection. The top photo is the one I took by visiting the site. The photo below it is what the Realtor took and submitted for a home for sale ad!

Yes, those are photos of the same house! It's amazing what you can find when you step out of the car. This was such a unique home.

Finally, here is a gallery of some of my favorite real estate photos that I have taken.

Printed T-shirts

Beautiful printed t-shirts keep rolling off the Creativity On press. This time it's a big order for our friends at Valley Health and Postal Employees Credit Union.

The direct to garment printing method makes it particularly easy to convert your art into shirts whether it's black on color or full color on a lighter fabric. You may have some great art on your computer that would make a great shirt for your business, team, or club.

Direct to garment printed tees

On the work table today are dozens and dozens of printed shirts. In this case the art was created in grayscale and printed on beautiful blue shirts.

Unlike screen printing, there is no rubbery feel to the printed image. The ink is sprayed on through inkjet technology, then heat-pressed to bond the ink to the fabric. The result is that when you rub your hand over the printed image, you feel nothing but shirt. And you can wash it repeatedly without worry about it racking or peeling.

When printing in black or dark grays, you can print on most colors and still show a sharp blended image. This is a very popular look today!

Embroidered hats on the work table

The embroidery machines have been whirring and buzzing with activity!

If you are looking for embroidered caps for your group or business, please give us a call or visit our website for more details.

Event Shirts from Creativity On

It's been nine months since we acquired our direct-to-garment printer. We initially got it because we liked what we heard about how it differed from screen printing and we wanted to be able to offer our embroidery clients a printing option.

We've discovered this to be a lovely combination. Some clients like having their event shirts both embroidered and printed. It gives them great flexibility in getting exactly the product and the look they want.

In the example above, the client wanted an embroidered logo shirt with the word STAFF printed on the back. You can't tell it from the photo but the printing measures 12 inches wide by five inches tall. The embroidered logo is 3.5 inches wide. (The fabric color looks different here because I took one photo with a flash and the other without a flash, resulting in a darker yellow on the top photo.)

If you're wanting to put together a shirt for an event, give us a call. We can talk to you about different options with embroidery, printing, or both.

Hot stories behind the scenes

We have had our direct-to-garment printer for nine months now. Yesterday we'd scheduled a full production run consisting of 140 t-shirts printed front and back. We also had 20 more shirts with embroidery on the front and printing on the back.

Altogether that was 300 print impressions.

It was 109 degrees outside.

We've got some pretty good insulation for the shop, but nature was really playing hardball.

Our printer is designed to flash a warning message when the printer sensors register 89 degrees. Guess what they did.

Nature won. (It was a little like that old story about the north wind not being able to remove the guy's jacket by huffing and puffing, but the sun did it with a well-conceived baking strategy.)

So how was the order printed? At night while the sun was sleeping.

The shirts turned out great!

Play for the Cure

It's almost August, time for Play for the Cure. We have been busy embroidering and printing items for this great event.

With direct to garment printing, which is like a glorified inkjet printing, the color of the fabric mixes with the ink. It acts more like your home printer. So if you print on pink paper, you get a slightly different look than if you print on white paper. Same thing with garments, so we run test samples to see how it will come out. We also have color charts that we can print on any color fabric to see how the colors will print.

As you can see here, the pink printed pinker on the pink fabric than on the white fabric. We did nothing to the source Photoshop file. It's just how the ink reacts with the background color.

Law of Attraction shirts

Do you resonate with the law of attraction? Do you believe that you create your reality through how you construct your life in your mind?

At Creativity On, we totally support positive thinking. We want to see more of it in the world to counteract the relentless negativity streaming out of the mass media.

As you already know, t-shirts provide a great opportunity for social interaction. Put an intriguing message on a shirt and chances are good that you'll attract comments. And that means the opportunity for social interaction.

Social interaction is one of the best ways for watching the law of attraction in action. When you are attuned to how the Universe/God/human psychology works (use whatever terminology you are comfortable with here), you'll notice that answers often come out of nowhere, from a friend of a friend, or through what a stranger tells you.

If something you have written on a shirt opens a great new doorway for you, isn't that a good thing? If you want to attract something into your life (new clients, new romance, new experiences), put it on a shirt! See what happens.

We are more than happy to work with you to create shirts for yourself, your group, or your business. Any of the designs that we post on our blog can be tweaked and personalized so that you get exactly what you want. The text can be in a different color or be in black but printed on a different color. We could add graphics or other text.

Original personalized shirts start at just $17.99 + shipping. Call for pricing on quantities.

PS. Scroll down on this blog for details on our free shirt giveaway! There is still time to enter.

Hats, Hats, Hats

Hats have been the order of the last couple of days here at Creativity On. One order featured 96 hats with two-location embroidery, which means 192 runs. That's a lot of stitching!

Yes, we provide puff stitch embroidery

One of the fun things about embroidery is how fun it is to touch. It gives your fingers something to do during boring conversations or meditative moments. Texture also looks great and adds another dimension to clothing.

Puff stitch is a type of embroidery that is even, as the name implies, puffier. It gives a very classy 3-D appearance to the stitching as shown on the cap above. The texture is more defined than other embroidery stitching.

Puff stitch demands more labor and requires professional digitizing. It's not a great candidate for rush jobs. If you're looking for something like this, plan for some lead time.

We are always happy to discuss your ideas or make product suggestions. We've been in the business for over ten years and are happy to pass on information.

Cheers for the Cheerleaders

Embroidery on pockets of things is sometimes quite challenging and takes a lot of savvy, but when Jolene puts her mind to it, she can produce results like this beautiful duffel bag for McNary Cheer.

If you're interested in something like this for your group or business, give Jolene a call and see what magic she can perform for you.

Embroidered hoodies for stylin'

On such a scorching day as it is today it is hard to imagine that not that far away it'll be hoodie weather. You can plan ahead for the chillier weather and be stylin'.

If you don't have one of our printed catalogs and want a quick idea of the different kinds of apparel that we can supply you with, head on over here.

Give yourself a free feel-good shirt

Think about your favorite positive saying or slogan that you would like to see on a custom t-shirt.

We at Creativity On are big supporters of self-expression, and t-shirts have become a great canvas for rendering personal art, especially with the advent of direct to garment printing! We also support personal efforts to help heal the planet of rampant negativity. When you wear a t-shirt with a positive message imprinted on it, it sends out good feelings, and we like that.

So here's what we're going to do about it!

We will create a text-based t-shirt that contains a positive saying or slogan that you send to us and would like to wear. We'll choose five winners.

Of course we hope that when you see how easy it is to have cool t-shirts created and printed that you'll use our services when you want new shirts made. We happily create personal, individual shirts at a very reasonable price. If you have a group, a fund-raising effort, or a business, wholesale pricing starts at just 12 pieces.

Here's how to win: Notify us by email at CreativityOn@comcast.net that you want a free shirt. Include your choice of positive saying or slogan. Also include the size of shirt you want (S, M, L, XL, or 2XL.) We'll randomly select five winners from all entries received by 9am July 31, 2009. We'll announce the winners on our blog and also notify the winners personally by email.

New to Creativity On? Visit our website.

Free shirts coming soon

Stay tuned. We're cooking up our latest free shirt giveaway and it's going to be better than ever.

We've got you covered

At Creativity On we've got you covered with both embroidery and garment printing.

As you can see in the photo, using the different media, we can achieve different looks for your group or business. You can take advantage of the durability and beauty of embroidery. Or you can take advantage of the flexibility to cover large fabric areas with direct-to-garment printing, which is also more durable than screen printing.

Let us know what you are looking for and we'll tell you (or show you) what we can do for you. Of course, maybe you don't know what you're looking for yet--just that you want something for your group. We can help guide you with suggestions. There's never any pressure. (We don't do landscaping, but we're very down to earth!)

Get your socks printed here

Although we acquired our garment printer to print t-shirts and sweatshirts, we've since discovered new uses for it that had never occurred to us. We have been printing on socks, headbands, and wristbands for Play for the Cure, a softball fundraiser for the Linda L. Vladyka Breast Wellness Foundation.

Friday is t-shirt day (at least today)

This t-shirt project is a particularly satisfying one for Josh. Many of the projects that we get are based on the finished art that the client provides. We make the t-shirts, but we so not make the art.

In the case of this shirt, I made the art. The project began when Windermere Pacific West Properties contacted me one afternoon to work on a real estate presentation. I went out early the next morning to capture some photos of the new 295 Church Street Condominium project. The weather was overcast and Windermere needed photos the next day.

When you can't control the weather or the lighting, the next best thing is to find a creative way to work with what you've got to tell the story. And for me the story was that this new condo complex had a fabulous front/back yard--Pringle Creek Park in downtown Salem. It reminded me of when I lived in San Francisco and my yard across the street was Golden Gate Park.

With that in mind I looked for a way to convey the relationship between the park and the building. I found a very nice shot using Pringle Creek as the "front yard" foreground. My friends at Windermere liked the shot so much they made it the centerpiece of the presentation.

When the idea of t-shirts came up several weeks later, I had taken many more real estate photos of the complex in different weather and lighting conditions. I had even re-taken the photo above with blue sky in the background. Ironically blue sky changes the intensity of light and overcast skies provide a nice diffused light. The Windermere people poured through a bunch of my photos and kept coming back to this one as the one they wanted for the t-shirt.

We decided to create an artistic effect rather than print the unaltered photo. The photo looks great on a computer screen or on a high resolution print-out on photo paper. Yet t-shirts are porous and some of the subtle shifts in color, particularly on the building through the trees, got muted on fabric. The artistic rendition popped more and also added to the emotional appeal that the photo generated.

What the photo of the shirt here on this blog doesn't show well is the amazing detail in the print on fabric. Maybe soon you'll notice one walking around town and can see for yourself.

For more info on the 295 Church Street Condominiums, visit their website.

Embroidered blankets

Blankets make great promotional gifts or products to sell in gift stores when they are embroidered with an attractive logo or graphic. An embroidered blanket is classy and useful.

They are priced right to give as thank-you gifts, such as to clients in real estate, home loans, investments, and so on.

Please give us a call if you are interested in seeing what you might give as a promotional gift in your business or if you would like to discuss wholesale pricing for your retail business.

What's creatin' today at Creativity On!

Another busy day is unfolding at Creativity On in Salem, Oregon! Jolene is in the workshop making embroidered shirts happen for Historic Fish Lake. I got a nice photo of the machine in action.

Joshua is in his office composing a real estate flyer for the new 295 Church Street Condominiums. (Yes, it is true, he is taking a short break from that to post this!)

Teddi is taking a nap. Well, she looks as if she is taking a nap, but I often believe that during their snooze time kitty-cats are controlling world events through telepathy. They just look like they're lazing to fool us.

Humming and whirring

Today the embroidery machines (and Jolene) are humming and whirring with a hat order from the McKenzie River Ranger District.

Josh is doing some final touches on a graphic for a big t-shirt print order. Stay tuned for details.

Teddi is taking another nap.

On Monday's Work Table

Jolene is doing a bunch of embroidered shirts for South Seattle Frito-Lay.

Josh is experimenting with different artistic effects for a new t-shirt for one of our clients.

Teddi is taking a nap.

Photography--a top house-selling tool

In this day and age of Internet searching, one of the most important tools for the home seller or Realtor is good photography. If the property does not look good in the photos, fewer potential buyers will be interested in asking for a home tour.

Many Realtors either don't have the time or the skills to take good photos. Some Realtors believe that shooting photos with their cell phone is good enough. While Reators understandably want to cut expenses, by not providing good photos, they are shrinking their odds of attracting interested buyers. Bad photos may be a deal-breaker altogether. (I know personally that I won't tour a home I'm not attracted to from the photos.)

One time I was sitting with some Realtors at an open house which had been advertised in the Statesman-Journal. We would see people slow down as if they were casing the place out, then drive on. We could logically conclude that they were not impressed with the "curb appeal" of the home from the outside.

Yet this was a wonderful home! It was gorgeous inside and much larger than the street view would indicate. The S-J ad was one of those photos requiring a magnifying glass to see, and it only showed the front. If these drivers-by could have seen real photos of the place, some of them surely would have stopped in for a closer look.

Photos do not sell houses. Houses sell houses. But if no one is intrigued enough to come look at a house, the house will stay on the market from lack of showings. Good photos will at least get them in the door.

If you are a home seller, make getting good photos one of your priorities in selecting a Realtor or in selling your own home. Ask Realtors for samples of the photography they provide for clients. To help make good photography a priority, please check out the hints we have assembled here.

If you don't want to do it yourself, we do offer a reasonably priced photography service which can (but doesn't have to) include creation of real estate flyers. You can see some examples here.

On Thursday's Work Table

Today we are printing 185 shirts for the All Saints Lutheran Pre-School in New Mexico! Since the shirts are blue, it presents a good opportunity to show how the background color affects the printed color in direct to garment printing. It's something like printing on blue paper on your home inkjet printer; the ink mixes with the color of the fabric.

To design for DTG printing, we print a color chart on the same fabric we are going to print shirts on. Using a color chart lets you re-color the graphic if you want to tweak the color combination. For example, the color yellow printed on a blue shirt yields a shade of green. Using the color chart you could see a whole range of colors as they appear on blue, so if you wanted to make a change you could.

On this particular order we are printing a full logo on the back and a pocket-sized logo on the front.

If you are in the market for t-shirts in large quantities, please check with us about wholesale pricing.

Embroidering sling totes

Jolene does some amazing things with embroidery. Here is an example of an embroidered sling tote bag that she did for Play for the Cure, a softball fundraiser for the Linda L. Vladyka Breast Wellness Foundation.

Speaking of which, congratulations to Play for the Cure for already signing up a full roster of teams to play in the August 14-16 tournament held at Wallace Marine Park in Salem, Oregon. Way to go!

We'll be showing some other items we are producing for Play for the Cure. They have used both our embroidery and direct to garment printing services.

On Today's Work Table

Since the beginning of the Oregon Sesquicentennial year, the Oregon State Capitol has been ordering 100 shirts at a time. We're doing another hundred on our direct to garment printer.

This just in ...

Our clients who found us via a Google search and who placed the order in the (following) post about the dog bandannas just checked in with these wonderful words:

"Wanted to thank you so much for the bandannas. They arrived much earlier than I expected and they are 100% perfect! Thanks for everything! I'll let you know how our charity drive goes ...."

The Canine Fashionista

One of the surprises we've had is how popular dog bandanas are! Once you become aware of them you see them everywhere!

We had a client who asked if we could print original bandanas for guide dogs. At the time we had never printed any, but we figured out a technique and suddenly found that we had another way to please our clients.

If you want original dog bandanas for your store, fund-raiser, or group, give us a call to find out all the details. Wholesale pricing starts at 12 pieces.

Do you really want screen printing?

Screen printing is one of those terms that people often use in a general way. Someone may say "let's get some shirts screen printed" without really knowing about the different technologies available for printing stuff on shirts. They might not actually mean screen printing if they knew the choices they had.

It's not uncommon for people to come to our shop and say something like, "We'd love to print our graphic in color but we can't afford all the set-up charges." Screen printers often have to charge expensive set-up fees. When we tell customers that we print in full color without any set-up charges, the lights go on. Suddenly they can do what they thought was out of the question.

We do digital garment printing. We can print photos, full-color graphics, and gradient blends. The only real limitation with DTG is that it does not print opaque inks like white on black. What's printed must be darker than the color of the fabric it's printed on. It's great for printing on white or lighter toned colors and you can create some wonderful effects with darker inks on midtone shirts like medium gray, olive green, and blues.

With screen printing you can get light colors on dark fabric but your choice in color is very limited and you often have to pay set-up charges per color. With DTG you can print gradient rainbows but need to print on lighter fabrics for the ink to show through. And we do not charge set-up fees.

Between what we do in-house and what our partners do, we can help you choose the right print medium for the requirements of your project. We can get you covered with direct to garment printing, embroidery, screen printing or heat transfers.

The Mad Hatter is at it again

Our embroidery machines are humming away today on baseball caps for South Salem Little League.

We're always happy to answer any of your questions about embroidery or garment printng. Check out our website for more information.