# making your own tshirts



## daddybigbucks (Jan 30, 2011)

after years of just wearing a black t-shirt, i decided to venture out a bit and will wear something on my tshirts.
I dont want to be a billboard for a company and would like to make my own design or my own pictures.

Does anyone do this?
I looked a silkscreen printing and looks fairly easy at home, but would like to hear from someone that has done it.

has anyone used the inkjet iron-on decal for tshirts?

sorry about the quirky post but as usual the internet is just a tangled mess to get any info.


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## Echo (Apr 1, 2011)

CafePress? - http://www.cafepress.ca/cp/customize/makeadesign2.aspx?clear=true&no=152&color=6#designer


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

The iron-on decals aren't great. They make the fabric stiff, and they can crack/peel in the laundry. I wouldn't recommend them. 

No experience with silk-screening. I did get a shirt from Cafepress once and it seemed good (although it was a gift, so I can't say how it held up).


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Vista print does pretty good printed shirts for a relatively fair price. I've used them to make shirts.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Same, heard of many people use Vistaprint.


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## Synergy (Mar 18, 2013)

Vistaprint is pretty good, not as inexpensive as they use to be but the quality is decent. Just be sure that you use high quality images. They won't bother to contact you if the image looks bad / pixelated, they will just send you the order. Embroidery can spice up a plan t-shirt or golf shirt as well, create your own logo, etc. There are residential machines that can be purchased that work pretty well for embroidery and there are software programs that can convert your images to a stitch pattern.


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## maxandrelax (Jul 11, 2012)

I've used Epson iron-on cool peel transfers successfully. Epson ink jet printer. It is good for a one off print. eg, steal an image from online. CMF shirt anyone? 

I've also done a tonne of screen printing. Screening is great for many prints. I screened 80 tshirts for a hockey tournament recently. I used only a small pint of paint to do the whole batch.

You can do a one off print with screen as well. Lean the screening process by cutting stencils out of paper or acetate and screen your image onto paper or cardboard first. Often, when I see people screen print a shirt for the first time it is quite terrible because they haven't practiced the process enough times. It gets more complicated when you choose to do a "photo emulsion" which is essentially hardening an image onto your screen instead of using a stencil. 

There is a pretty steep learning curve. You might mess up a few shirts. Gold paint looks great on black shirts, but it is the most finicky paint to use.


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