I wanted to let everyone know that our video editing station has come down with a virus. Once the editing station is out of the ER, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Thanks for your patience!
Wrap Around Snake Skin Tee and Adhesive Residue Revisited
Posted: October 15, 2010 by Mike Koval in UncategorizedThanks to everyone for the warm welcome back. Your comments were greatly appreciated…I guess you really did miss us! Now on to the goods…
OK, this week we have some thing pretty cool to show you. What we did was take a snake skin pattern heat trasnfer vinyl, and created a wrap around the neck tee. Our design is as you probably guessed, is a snake complete with eyes and a tounge. We just used a red metallic vinyl for those parts for an added flare to the design.
Now here is the cool part…you may remember the old adhesive residue trick we used back in the day. Well we discovered by accident a way to take it a step further…an adhesive residue number two if you will. We used our SPECTRA Cut vinyl, cut it, weeded it, heated it @ 400 degrees F for 5 seconds and peeled hot. This material gives you look similar to the old way, but adds some actual color and gives you a pretty nice distressed look…using heat transfer vinyl!
Peep this…
This video even required a wardrobe change, LOL!
Pretty slick, huh? Try this new trick out, I am sure you will like it…so will your customers! Thanks for watching. Until next time, keep those shirts coming off the shelf!
BTW, I will be out next week, so unfortunately, no video. Good news, you will get the pleasure of two the next week.
It’s been a while since we last spoke, and we just wanted to let you know that we aren’t going anywhere. We are in the process of upgrading our video equipment and setting up our room to enhance your Pimpashirt viewing pleasures.
We want to thank all of our loyal subscribers for hanging in there with us through this lapse in posts. Trade show season is in full swing and we spoke with alot of our subcribers in CA, FL and NJ. It’s nice to see people in person and chat face to face.
Thanks to all for your patience…and why not take a blast to the past and look at Pimpashirt #1
Another Distressed Look
Posted: January 25, 2010 by Mike Koval in UncategorizedTags: adhesive residue, apparel business, customized t-shirt, gx-24, heat applied film, heat press
Before we get to this weeks Pimpashirt Creation…we come to you with a special announcement. You may have noticed that one of the Pimpashirt emcees has been missing from our videos….that emcee is one of Pimpashirt’s originator’s Josh Ellsworth. Josh leaves the Pimpashirt crew on great terms and has accepted a new job with Stahls’.
Josh – Congratulations and best of luck and thanks for your contributions to Pimpashirt.com!
On with the show…so this week we bring to you another Pimpashirt original. Our distessed design was very well received, so we decided to give our viewers another option with this type of look.
This week features a method that we introduced a while back…the adhesive residue technique. If you remember, this is acheived by hot peeling a cold peel heat transfer material. We decided to take this technique a step further by allowing a portion of the design to set in to allow some of the material to stick to the shirt. What you get is an adhesive residue, but also some of the material will bond with the shirt giving it a really PIMP distressed look…check it out.
Superman…unzipped
Posted: January 18, 2010 by leetringes in UncategorizedTags: eco-film, heat press, heat transfer vinyl, superman, vinyl cutter
Happy Monday to everyone! I would like to start by saying thank you for all of your favorable responses to last week’s post on the distressed look with film. We appreciate all of the positive comments, questions, and interest. We will do our best to keep bringing you similar types of design techniques for you to use.
This week we created what I like to call the “Superman…unzipped” . Basically this technique is made by layering films to create the look of a shirt on top of another shirt, sort of like the tuxedo shirt idea. In this example we used some Eco Film to create a basic superman logo, then layered some on top of it to look like a zipper. Finishing it off, we added some nice chrome metallic film to give the zipper a 3d and authentic look…creating a shirt inside of another shirt! I think it’s a pretty cool idea because you create the look that a lot of people like to wear like a hoodie, vest, or jacket on the outside with a shirt underneath showing through.
I hope you liked this week’s pimp-a-shirt and gong-ing! Please share your comments and questions…c ya next week.
Distressed Look with film
Posted: January 11, 2010 by leetringes in UncategorizedTags: distressed, gx-24, heat applied film, heat transfer, vinyl cutter
Welcome to this week’s edition of PimpAShirt. This week we decided to show you a technique that is very popular with clothing today. The distressed look. Typically, this is done with screenprinting and is done with a special font that will leave areas of the design unprinted… i.e – no ink. The result is a garment that looks like it has been “worn” or “destroyed”. This is a very popular theme with clothing companies like Abercrombie, American Eagle and others. This look can also be applied using embroidery and applique.
It’s very easy to take this concept and do the same thing screen printers do. All you need is some Eco Film, or another heat applied film that is very easy to weed and a distressed look font. The one that we used this week was called Dirt2SoulStalker. You can search the internet for others, but we found this one at dirt2.com. We used this techinque with the white pimpashirt and 2010 on the garment. Basically the technique is to apply this font to your text or design, and it will put several cuts in the design that you will later weed away, the effect will be a random distressed look!
Check out the video>
Remember, don’t limit yourself to the ordinary. Take your equipment and do some out of the box and truly unique decoration. That’s what PimpAShirt is all about. If you’d like to download this free font, it is in our “box”.
Upscale Decoration
Posted: December 30, 2009 by leetringes in UncategorizedTags: corporate apparel, dri fit, eco, eco-film, gx-24, heat applied vinyl, heat transfer, print and cut, tuxedo shirt, under armour, versacamm
So many of you may think that using a vinyl cutter or print & cut machine is just for your run of the mill t-shirt or uniform. Well, you’d be wrong! The fact that the material available on both the cuttable and digital side of things has advanced so much, these decoration methods are well suited to decorate the finest garments. In addition to t-shirts and uniforms, you can easily decorate Under Armour apparel, Nike Dri Fit, and many other examples of corporate apparel and performance wear. You can even decorate elegant tuxedos….like we did this week.
No…not a real tuxedo, but a tuxedo t! We started with black Eco Film for the lapel, and added some Electric Red for a boutonnière, and green Foil for a dollar sign to show a “pimped” tuxedo…perfect for any formally informal event!
The point of this week’s video is to open your mind to all the things possible with your vinyl cutter and print and cut machine. Upscale decoration is truly possible, and in most cases these methods are the best way. Corporate apparel on polos , button down shirts, expensive jackets and performance wear. Due to the fact that we have material that will apply to nearly any fabric, sometimes this is the only method available, but it’s definitely one of the best. Don’t be afraid to decorate those expensive upscale garments….and make yourself a tuxedo shirt…they’re fun!
The Greener the Better
Posted: December 14, 2009 by leetringes in UncategorizedTags: cadcut, gx-24, heat applied film, heat press, heat press vinyl, poly pro, print and cut, roland versacamm, roland vinyl cutter
This week we “pimped” a bag! Polypropylene bag to be exact, with a one color design on one side and a full color design on the other. In fact, we even used a hunter green colored bag!
Poly Pro bags are one of the latest trends in the promotional products market. They are lightweight, sturdy, and cost-effective. The best thing is that they are essentially composed of recycled plastic, like pop bottles. By choosing them, you can promote your business or cause cost effectively AND use an environmentally friendly recycled product. There are even several choices for decoration materials to make it very easy for you.
The first design we used was a simple recycle logo with some text. We chose to use our Spectra Eco Film and Roland GX-24 vinyl cutter. Eco Film is soft, thin and composed of polyurethane instead of PVC. It also passes the Ökeo-Tex 100 certification. The Ökeo-Tex Standard 100 is a certification for companies requiring among other things compliance with specified criteria for avoiding or limiting the use of harmful substances in production. It is perfect for one or two color decoration, and applies at a low 270 degree temperature.
Next, we applied a full color logo onto the back of the bag. This design was produced using a Roland Versacamm and our Spectra Solar Print Media. The nice thing about this media is that it is specifically designed for application onto heat sensitive materials. It applies at only 212 degrees! That makes it perfect for poly propylene bags and heat sensitive fabrics. Another great option is our Colorprint II, which can be applied at a low 270 degree temperature. This material, which is used with the Versacamm to produce full color graphics, is also PU based and safer for the environment. The ink we utilized is Roland’s Eco Sol Max, which has harmful chemicals taken out so you don’t need to worry about breathing fumes like you do with some machines and ink systems. It’s the perfect complement to our green efforts!
These days it is becoming very easy to go green with your decoration. There is an increasingly large offering of green products out there from organic t-shirts to poly pro bags and eco-friendly ink. To go along with them, reputable media suppliers also have offerings for one color and full color decoration to compliment. The more you can do….the greener the better.
Get in the Spirit w/ Holiday Patterns
Posted: November 30, 2009 by leetringes in UncategorizedTags: cutter, full color graphics, heat press, patterns, spectra, vinyl cutter
It’s that time of year again, everything you see is decorated for the Holidays. Red and Green, bows, lights, stripes and so on. This week we decided to give you some festive designs for shirt decoration. We created three shirts using some of our holiday patterns. Patterns are a perfect way to get some unique full color designs without using any type of printer, just your cutter. All you have to do is use Corel Draw, Illustrator, Cad Worx Live or Roland Cut Studio to create a vector design and send it to your cutter with the white side of the pattern roll up. Weed away the excess, heat apply, and remove the mylar!
Here is a look at some Holiday Patterns that are available :
Spectra Patterns are also available in many other non-holiday styles and colors that can be found on our website. In addition, you can get custom patterns made from your artwork, just give us a call or send an email to learn how. Have a great holiday and enjoy the video!
