Thanks you for stopping by the T-shirt Biz Blog. I started this blog to share my knowledge and gain knowledge about the t-shirt industry.  This blog is mostly centered around the silk screened t-shirt part of the biz but will focus on other aspects of the t-shirt industry.

I have been a fan of t-shirts all of my life.  Where I grew up no one had a lot of money and the plain white t-shirts were the most affordable shirt that you could buy.  For that reason t-shirt went from being a sort of undergarment to rapidly becoming a for of fashion.  The clean white tee became more of a status symbol.  For many it represented a kind of higher class amongst the poor.

So my ties to tees as fashion have been with me for most of my life.  I started later being interested in silk screened t-shirts as I became a teen and those were considered premium t-shirts that were usually only available in department stores.  I was always curious about how the image was transferred onto the t-shirt.  I had no clue what the process was or the equipment that was needed to produce a screen printed shirt.  At this point in my life no one knew about the internet and everything was researched thru the phone book.

In my 20’s I started to research what was needed to get into the business and I learned all that i could about the processes without ever jumping into the business.  At the time the cost of the basics to get started was more than I was able to manage.  A few years later a close family member had purchased a 4 color press and all of the supplies for about $600.  One day I visited him he showed me a t-shirt design he had printed on a shirt and I was in amazement that he was in possession of the exact equipment that I have not been about to get my hands on for years.   Yo me this was fate.   So over the next couple of days he showed me how it all worked and explained the process to me to the best of his ability.  He had bought the silk screening equipment as a hobby and had no desire to sell his works.

For the next few weeks I spent the bulk of my free time learning all I could from various websites about screen printing and I scrapped together the money to buy a 1-color press and inks and cleaning supplies for about $300 from the website that my relative said he had bought his equipment from.  By the time the press had arrived i was so well read on the subject that in a matter of days i had mastered the process enough to produce shirts that were of store quality according to all of the friends and family that had see my designs.

It was not long after that that I opened an Ebay store to start selling my t-shirts.  I had sold a few things from around the house on there so I was quite familiar with the selling process.  It also helped that I think about the business side of everything i’m involved in.  I like to see the numbers and how they translate into profits.  I listed several tees for sale in the Ebay store as well as listings for custom designs where the buyer sent me their design and I would basically act as a print shop.

I jumped in head first know that i could not fail and within a week my first order came for about $125 for 25 custom shirts.  I was well on my way and I was trying to quickly recoup the money that I had invested in order to turn a profit.  After about a couple of months and sales of over 200 pieces and a few reinvestments into supplies I had finally gotten out of the red and into the black.  I was running a business you could say.

That whole process lead to me starting to work on a branded t-shirt clothing line because I had started to tire of acting like a print shop and the tedious processes of doing one design and only printing one t-shirt at a time.  The t-shirt clothing company is still in the works.  The process of trying to start a t-shirt line and the research of all that is involved gave me the idea of starting this blog to share the processes and resources that I have found.

I will make make many posts and add links to all of the places and resources that I find.  There will be many goodies added to this site as i have already amassed a great deal of information already in the short amount of time that I have been involved with silk screening.