posted: March 31st, 2026
The beginning...
Back in 2017, I started making custom "discharge ink" Fishure-Price™ shirts with my friend Gary Strobl. The shirts were cool, but it was a long process to go from design, to screen, to print, all while working around Gary's schedule.
In mid-2020, I started playing with Cricut vinyl and a heat press. I could make my own shirts! They were not as soft as the discharge ink, but within an hour I could cut a sheet of vinyl, weed out all the part that wasn't the design, and heat press it to a shirt! Super cool, but due to being so labor intensive, the process did not lend itself to making more than one shirt.
This became the problem...
The problem, actually, is that every hobby I have eventually becomes monetized, and therefore less fun. "That's a cool shirt. How can I get one?" That's something that a person trying to start a business would want to hear, but I was doing this solely as a fun hobby.
A roof damaged by my apartment management company, and a heart attack (and subsequent job losses) changed that. Since I am now hemorrhaging money monthly on storage space, as well as trying to make ends meet, I have to turn the shirts into a business...with free time I don't have.
I started with a "Pigskins & Pigtails Screen Printing Bundle". $400. Fine. It came with a few screens and two squeegees. Now, the selling point was that you could use Cricut vinyl instead of emulsion. Just cut your vinyl, stick it to the screen, and make shirts!
Nope!
The vinyl came loose. Tips online said to "heat press" the vinyl to the screen. NOPE! Ruined the vinyl, and the screen. Two screens down.
Ordered ten more screens. Ten squeegees arrived (Thanks Ryonet!). After phone calls, I got the screens. Cool, let's make more shirts!
Well, all the screens failed, because Cricut vinyl is just not meant to be used as a stencil. All these people doing this shit on YouTube and TikTok are magicians, because I can't get it to work, even after ten more attempts!
This is now WEEKS into the process, spending money on equipment, screens, inks, shirts, squeegees...lots of money that I don't have.
Enter Ikonart. Buy our UV lamp, expose our emulsion sheets, and use those to screen! Yeah, but...the screens are NOT in a frame, and trying to put one into a Speedball frame resulted in a shattered frame at the far end of my garage.
By my calculations, I'm already out $1,500.00, and I have yet to make a clean shirt. Why go through all this hell? Because Cricut vinyl shirts do not last, and I can't sell people something that has a limited life! I got about 30 washes out of my Cricut shirts before they started cracking. And, lately, something has changed with Cricut vinyl, because the shit does NOT stick to shirts anymore. Heat press, cool, peel, and you find most of your design on the carrier sheet.
I just wanted to try and financially stay afloat in this FUCKED UP world. Instead, I'm losing even more money. And I'm stressed. Horribly stressed. Not a good thing for someone trying to avoid another heart attack.
You read this far? Well then, enjoy a gallery of some of my Cricut vinyl shirts.
