So I guess I’m going to do another blog for all of you that are trying to start some sort of T-shirt or sublimination printing business or anything of that sort so you don’t have to go through all the crap and six months of “how the hell do I do this frustration ”that I went through.
So about a year and a half ago my husband had to make a decision on two things. Do we build a deck in front of and expand the house? Or do we start a small business and hopefully make enough money to where we can put a deck on later. We obviously decided that we would do the business. Now I know what you’re thinking…You’re crazy don’t you know businesses can be money pits at first? Yes they are money pits I am not going to lie. You kinda have to have money to make money right? Even if you have credit cards or you take out loans, it’s still going to end up being money that you don’t have putting into a business that you’re banking on is going to pay you back for all that you spent on getting equipment and supplies for your business.
So here are some of the things that I will share with you on the do’s and don’ts. Now let’s say that you want to get a sublimination printer, you go online and find the best price then you buy it. So now let’s say that you have to have special paper to go with the printer so you can do your projects. Now lucky for you the paper comes with instructions on heat times, press times, and other instructions for other kinds of materials that you might be using. But then you find out that the instructions explicitly for this paper are a bunch of crap. Yes I said crap.
I don’t know how many times I have looked at the instructions, followed it to a tee, and the product comes out burnt or it doesn’t come out at all or it doesn’t peel off or it does peel off but it doesn’t leave the print behind or whatever it is and you would think the people making these instructions would know this. ( hence sending instructions)….
So here is how to get around that. Two words….YouTube videos! Now let’s be clear…not all YouTube videos are going to be right! I have run into some videos that were way older using way older machines and way older software and God knows where they got any of this stuff, and it’s not going to work for you because you have all the new stuff. Now with programs like Adobe Photoshop they are all kind of the same even though there are different versions. Like for instance I have Adobe Photoshop 8 and most of the videos that I’m watching are 5, 6 and 7 although they have the same functions mostly and the same buttons, they’re just in all different places so you have to go looking for them. UUUGGGHHH!!!
So when you finally do find one that works, you had already done and screwed up 4 different products that are trash now. That’s money loss. So in this particular blog I’m going to put down a few YouTube videos that I found that worked for me, hopefully they will work for you and save you some of the hair pulling, gray hair, frustrated, throwing your printer out the window type of behavior.
And just as a sidenote, you might have to double check what paper you are using. You might be using different printers then I have been using, so you really want to just stick with what is made for your printer.
Now about heat presses… You do need certain kinds of paper for your printer, so you have to stick with those. But as far as your heat press goes, they will work with any type of paper that’s used for your printer. There are many different kinds of companies that sell different brands of paper for sublimination and laser printing. But always stick with the paper that goes with your printer DO NOT DEVIATE!!! Heat presses will always press whatever, as long as your using some sort of heat transfer paper.
https://youtu.be/5hsXKdkxgWU (Mousepad)
https://youtu.be/mwx_3v5z0ww (Slate)