smart like a man

I've screen-printed many a great shirt in my day. Or, at least, I've screen-printed many a shirt. Thousands for groups on campus, lots for class demos, and some just because I feel like it. I've got a couple Ikea wire basket "drawers" full of shirts I've printed, and some are my faves to wear... but the following are my most-faves EVER.

This "doezieland" (2nd Happiest Place on Earth) shirt was my first attempt at multi-color shirt printing, about five years ago. Wait, that's a lie-- my first attempt didn't turn out that well. Trial and error-- mostly due to the "awkward placement" of the design just a taaaad too low on the front-- so I redid it and this was the result. Pretty proud of it, I must say... AND it got me free parking at the Happiest Place on Earth one year, on my birthday, which (coincidentally? NOT coincidentally?) is the SAME DAY as Disneyland's birthday! Not same birth-year, though. I'm quite a bit younger.

(totally meant to look faded/distressed like that. Y'know, retro.)

prepping for a big night with plenty o' caffeine, in Santa Cruz

This next one (modeled by Stacy) was a class demo, showing how to use different kinds of textures and inks (a puffy ink, a foil transfer, and a blacklight ink)... the design isn't super-fab, but it's the symbolism behind the design that counts. (My friends are super-lucky because every time I have to do a shirt-printing demo, I make it something I can give away btw.)  For this one, the HB stands for Huntington Beach, done in a spoof design of those ridiculous city stickers that are a spoof/copy themselves of the more legit country stickers in the EU... To the upper right of the "B" is a little 3 (done in red foil), to signify HB to the Third. In other words, to "celebrate" (argh) our third annual Huntington Beach Mid-Singles Conference. Argh. Under the oval, in blacklight ink (so it's not readily visible, except in a par-tay!) (said sarcastically, come on) it says, THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM. Oh and then, on the back, in strong white letters, it shouts RESIGNED IN '09. Yep. Those conferences have lovely themes like "hope", and "trust", and "never give up, there's still 50 years to go", and my brother once said to me, "Why don't they have real themes, like "Denial", "Apparently Alone Forever",  or "Aw, crap. Again?". So, we made our own theme that year. (It was a close race between IT IS WHAT IT IS and RESIGNED IN '09.)

Oh yeah, and my students were totally baffled by the text on the shirt. I said, "Don't worry about it." I'm a great teacher.

Last March, I made this shirt just for fun, and more specifically for the line-dancing portion of KJ's Wild West (birthday) Weekend... cheaper than buying myself a snap-down plaid shirt, but still able to be tied up under my boobs in appropriate fashion for the line-dancing crowd. IF I happened to have awesome cowboy boots to wear with denim cut-off short-shorts, that is. SO sad that I had neither. Because my line-dancing skills sure weren't impressing the local Temecula cowboy crowd on their own.

I'll be honest, this picture doesn't really do it justice... because the horseshoe is done in a copper metallic foil, and the "cowboys" is printed as a blend of khaki, gold and bronze metallic ink. YeeHAW.

Shortly after my cowboy genius, it was time for spring's Tri-Textured-Tee demo, and fortunately that coincided with spring's Spring Break And Caribbean Cruise With Friends. Insta-gift!

I'm not going to lie, this shirt was GENIUS. Not only was it lovely and wave-y, and stated the obvious of "Crown Princess" on the front, (the name of the ship we were on, a mighty ship she was), BUT-- it utilized photochromic ink. Which is clear/barely visible when inside/out of the sunlight...

...BUT, when outside during the day, the ink turned to purple and shouted,

 Because of course, if we were outside during the day, we were most likely wanting a fresh plate of delicious french fries from the poolside Grill. Pretty standard for us four. (And something we reeeeally look forward to, each cruise...)

Then on the back/bottom of the shirt, it gave a little more info about just what the shirt was commemorating...

Pretty standard. UNTIL you went inside, and started to turn off the lights to go to sleep, and suddenly realized you were hungry, and the shirt conveniently reminded you that you probably wanted a

Glow-in-the dark ink! Pretty awesome. And appropos. And hard to see unless it was dark. Hence the appropos-ness of it all.

A mere month later, my little bro Derek left for Missouri to serve a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and though he'd be dressing appropriately in suits, shirts-and-ties until May of 2012, I thought he'd need one more printed tee from me before he left anyway. Then I printed one for myself (and in a girlier fabric color) after he left, so we'd have that bond.  If you're a Hot Rod fan, you'll totally get this... if not, you just won't. But if you are.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO GREAT!

(Derek is a big Hot Rod fan. He had me send him a fake mustache to wear, even. I don't know if he's had chance to wear it in Missouri, yet...)

BUT AFTER ALL THESE GREAT SHIRTS...

My most recently-printed shirt has got to be my most FAVORITE one of ALL time. (So far. :)

Here's a close-up in case you can't quite tell what it says:

Yes. That's what it says. And it's SO TRUE.

That's black shimmer ink, by the way. Which I'm sure is exactly what you're thinking about as you look at this design. As far as the text... I can't even begin to explain, or do this quote justice. But it makes me happy, that's for sure :) And isn't that what a good screen-printed shirt is all about?

*  *  *  *  *

(p.s. if you have a really great shirt idea, I need one... I've got this fall's shirt-printing demo coming up in two weeks!)