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.