DIY - print your own typographic t-shirt!

Hey there,

Seems like it's been a while! I figured since I haven't posted something in so long it would be nice if I could share my project that I am working on right now for my shop - hand-printed T-shirts!

They are incredibly easy, but they take time and require a bit of effort. 

Print your own t-shirts like this!

So I had several designs for my crop t-shirts, which I was trying to experiment with typography. This DIY guide only applies to text by the way - If you want an image with lots of colours I can't give you that! Contact your local craft store or ask around to get your t-shirts printed instead :)

Export the text to an image (.png)

Now here are two ways to cut the text - using an x-acto knife and using a laser printer. Since my school provides the second option for art students, this was what I used. 

First you load the image file onto 2D design. Then do the proper settings (vectorize bitmap, explode, line colour/fill for cutting) and print out with the printer. The laser will cut the outline of the text and this means the letters will fall out leaving empty spaces. 

Before printing - note that I used two A4 sheets because it didn't fit one :)

However, if you don't have access to the laser printer like I do, simply print out the text onto A4 paper that is adequately thick for easier manipulation and less messy cutting. Then use the x-acto knife to cut out your outlines.

After you have the outline - go ahead and put your shirt onto a flat surface. Preferably a board or table or something. 

Then use a few sheets of A3 paper to layer under the side you're printing on - this step is very important, because if you don't paint will leak through and dirty the other side of your shirt!

Align your painted/extracted outline text onto the shirt, wherever you want it to be. Tape it down to secure it on the shirt so it won't move around.

Don't forget the little insides of the text too! If you didn't save them like I forgot to... make some out of sticky paper and stick them on there. Otherwise double-sided tape goes well too!

After that you can start painting on your t-shirt! You can use fabric paint or here, I used acrylic paint because it was more available to me.

Keep "printing" it and fill in the blanks! I used two colours like my original design.

After you finished - go ahead and peel the paper off. Gently though - you don't want the paint to smudge all over if it is not dry yet!

The thrill of removing all of the stickers is absolutely exhilarating.

Voila! There you go. Easy, right? That took me at least 30-40 minutes for each shirt though. So yes, it takes effort, but at the end I kinda like how it is blotchy and looks like you've done it by hand :) Which is the point of it.

Summary of what you need:

- A t-shirt of your own
- X-acto knife or laser cutter (w/2D Design software)
- A4 paper (slightly thicker than normal paper)
- Sticker paper (optional)
- Tape
- A3 hardback paper
- Paintbrush
- Fabric or acrylic paint

Weeee! Now you have your own shirts! :) Isn't it neat?

x Chi

Shooting Fretsy's lookbook with My!

The newest pack of arrivals of beanies and crop tops came yesterday and I had the chance to shoot some photos with them with My today in our free period! The photos came out nicely and I was definitely glad to have picked out a pretty good outfit to go with the crop tees and beanies :D

If you haven't visited my shop already, be sure to! The link is on the right sidebar :)

I was wearing the new stuff but My wanted to get some photos for her self portrait project so I took pictures of her as well! She is such a dork.

Here is the lookbook:

And here are the behind-the-scenes photos! :D

This was my outfit :) All blackie

And this was My's outfit :) She had on this adorable flowery dress <3

Just so happens we were both wearing wedges!

attractive isn't she.

Check out my shop hehe!

http://fretsyonline.storenvy.com/

Toodles :)

-Chi

New project!

So even though school is near and there's a whole lot of school work to attend to, I've decided to take on a new project, that is re-decorating my room! I have been wanting to do this for ages and I actually planned to do it during the summer but I guess it's a little late. But better than never! :)

So I will be taking you through some of my DIY things that I will be doing to renovate my room. Some of these things will also go into my interior design project which is very exciting as well.

So unfortunately I don't have a complete before picture of my room :( which is silly, but for a little overview my room is quite small, we have two beds (but my brother is old enough now so he moved out of the room), and our walls are incredibly messy because we (me and my brother) when we were younger, put a whole lot of scraps and princesses and pictures and we even drew on the wall with crayons... so it's very messy. The wall is a warm white, but we also have like a wooden half-wall contrast thing, which is sometimes great but I find it quite annoying for some reason.

So right now, this is what it looks like. I only have two artworks so I am only putting those up temporarily (obviously I am not going to have a painting of Alex right there every day to look at in my room). I have some warm christmasy lights up, which I'm not sure this is how I like it but we will keep it there for now.

As you can see... my walls are stained by million sticky tape marks and random crayon circles, the result of a rebelish childhood.

The right hand wall (bigger than the left hand one)

So all day today I've been brainstorming on what I might do to the walls and the room in general. Here are a couple of my ideas so far:

Main wall:

• "Sleep is good" Light DIY Headboard (idea from here)
• Christmasy lights (already up, but may be rearranged)
• Huge rose/flower artwork (idea here)
• Random typography canvases and maybe some patterned ones
• Stenciled wall (the one on the left)
• Places I wanna go to canvases (idea here)
• Some sort of collage of lots of photos/polaroids & some framed goodness (like this one out of many)

Those are just some of the ideas in my head right now. Also I am going to be creating a Youtube channel with Alex soon... something we decided to do to spice up and make us more committed to each other a little bit haha. For that reason I will also need to organize and find a good place to film my videos and maybe some equipment to help filming as well. Here is a good tutorial for vlogging and such by jacksgap if you're interested.

By the way, I need help to choose a font for the headboard!!! I was thinking Lobster, what do you think?

G'day again

Hello again!

It's been super long and I thought I was never going to post again, but because I am extremely bored (I still have lots of stuff to do though) and of course I just love bloggin' so I'm here to interest you with me, my life and I lately.

So it's been summer, woooo and I haven't been up to much except... procastinating. But! I've been doing SOME stuff so don't be too disappointed.

So first of all... my shop was opened! :) It has been opened for quite a while now, sorry I couldn't update on it :( But I first opened a temporary shop because I had a lot of things and wanted to sell them but I didn't quite have a pretty website to go with it (if you know me I'm all about the pretty interface) so I had a temp. one here: http://fretsytemp.tumblr.com/

And then after that... I spent some time at the beginning of summer polishing and trying to release the actual shop. Which has now opened! It's on storenvy now, and jesus christ the coding and stuff was tiring. It's safe to say I am glad I am not a graphic designer... because I suck at coding. Haha!

Visit it here: http://fretsyonline.storenvy.com/

I love how Storenvy also provides a place for you in the marketplace! It's a lovely site to host your shop for free.

So I am so eager to get it going! I've sold quite a few stuff; the shorts seem to be selling very well. I am planning to expand to selling also some tops and graphics as well. And hopefully accessories when I have the cost to do that.

Bed of Flowers, Fretsy. Pre-order now at $14!

Secondly, there has been a major change in my career path... I am no longer going to be doing math for uni. Instead I am going for design! My parents agreed as it would make me so much happier in life rather than doing math. I am so happy with this decision, and I have been working a lot in researching and trying to build my portfolio for the career route.

After doing a lot of research I decided to do product design, which is a course that suits my interest most. Even though I like interior design more, product design is more efficient I guess for me and my future. I'm also planning to go to England, so I'm looking at a few options for uni over there also.

So speaking about design, I have been building my portfolio, do lots of projects, and during summer I did mostly the shop but also some graphic designing, and I also designed and made a hanging lamp! or chandelier. haha. I will upload pictures and update you soon on that one.

better pictures will be up soon when I come back to school to set up & take 'em!

I also have a few projects going under way. One is a LED Pop art project, another is an interior design project (this one is a bit difficult right now as no one is lending me furniture :'(). I've also got to update my Art book, haha haven't done that in a while (whoops)

Also another big thing that I did during summer was my new album! I recently released an album of 9 songs with 8 that are new, and this album was specially dedicated to Alex Mclean, my LDR boyfriend from Australia. It's his 18th birthday this Friday! Come and have a listen, I have a cool mashup and a few covers and some originals to share! http://chimai.bandcamp.com/

That's all of my news. Oh and! I also received the scripts and everything for the musical already. So excited!

What have you been up to all summer?

-Chi