Do you know that feeling when you get a wave of inspiration and have an urge to make it right this minute, or you might just burst? I’m still sorting through if that’s a glorious by-product of having ADD, or if it’s a creative spark and rush?
If you enjoy making things, this Substack is for you. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to piece together a home art studio that allows me to create physical products on a whim. If you’re a maker, you might understand this. You make a mockup of a product, post it online, and people with really kind intentions encourage you to “get that printed! I’d buy it!”. And then the next thing you know, you have 100 pencil boxes sitting under the bed because they, in fact, did not sell. So I’ve been on a quest to figure out how to make just one or two items at home, and for considerably less cost and waste.
🧵 Things I’ve Tried
I once bought a really fancy printer, for which I ended up wanting to throw it out a window. I then bought a whole “sublimation printing” setup. Sublimation printing sold me on the idea that I could create my own custom fabrics, hats, cups, mugs, and more. However, I quickly learned how much environmental waste it contributes when you can only print on sublimation blanks, which are extremely low-quality “fast fashion” items. (See. They’re cheap and ugly. Sorry!) I also found sublimation ink to be super unreliable in terms of the color output. Here’s a picture of my dog Snacks wearing a bandana I printed for him using the sublimation printer and heat press. It worked ok, but this is as good as it got!
🧵 New Set Up: The Cricut and Heat Press
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