How to generate ideas to make your own t-shirts

Whether you want to make your own t-shirts at home or online, the first thing you need to know is what you want to put on it? Inspiration is all around you my friend...

Pop culture is always a great source of inspiration for t-shirts, bags and whatever else. Music, movies and T.V have inspired gazillions of T-shirts over the last few decades, and if it’s done well, it just never seems to get old. You’re probably not interested in making run of the mill Star Wars or Simpsons prints. If you are, go to the mall. It’s way easier. Try an obscure line from a movie that stands up out of context but will leave people wondering a little. Also, slightly altered famous lines can be funny. On your own computer, or on websites that will make t-shirts for you, you can play around with fonts and print size and put the name of your favorite band, or a song or album title, or even a line from a song that speaks to you.

If you're savvy with Photoshop or some other image editor on your Computer, you can alter photographs, album covers, movie poster images...anything really, and make them yours. Or you can create your own image or logo using the same software, or make a drawing or painting and scan it into your computer. Then you can either send the JPEG or GIF file to Spreadshirt or some other t-shirt creating website, or you can print the image to use in stenciling, silk screening or iron-on transfers.

Please be careful about copyright issues, especially if you're going to sell your shirts!

And of course a scanner can also come in very handy for putting images directly from album covers, book covers, cards, children's drawings, and any other random things you have lying around. I love making things with ridiculous flyers I've been handed on the street from religious fanatics and lunatics about the end of the world and the burning hell. No offense to any of the devout out there, but some of that stuff is priceless! Look around your room for stuff that you've kept for years, stuff you found, things people gave you. You kept it because you like it! Maybe there's t-shirt material there just waiting for you. I met a guy with a short essay he wrote in grade school ironed onto his back. It was so funny and so original! What a conversation piece!

And, moving away from pop culture for a moment, train your brain to notice snippets of your days, keeping in mind what would be funny or interesting or cool on a Tee. Ever have conversations with friends and it evolves the way conversations do, and suddenly out comes a line which totally fits the conversation, but out of context it sounds hilarious? Sure you have! You just may not have noticed. Well, now, mark my words…You will!

Earlier I remarked snarkily that you should go to the mall if you're looking for generic and overdone pop-culture t-shirts, but in all seriousness, the mall can be a great place for inspiration. You see something that's lame, or even oooookaaayyyy, and you'll get ideas about what would make that concept much cooler or funnier. Inspiration is all around you, you just gotta be open to it!

In the next few days, I'm going to be adding much more hands on technical information about how to make your own t-shirts on your own, at home without the use of sites like Spreadshirt.

The easiest way to make your own t-shirts

I promise that very soon we will get into some real crafty ways to do it yourself, but let's start out real simple and go for the number one easiest way to make your own t-shirts. That's right! Have someone else do it! There are a bunch of companies now that allow you to design your own T on the web and they'll print it and send it to you. I've been researching loads of these sites lately. Some of them will restrict you to text, or combinations of their own images. A few will let you upload your own images.

My favorite is Spreadshirt because it's really easy and you can literally do whatever you want to. The image you use can be a photograph, a drawing you've scanned into your computer, or a graphic you created with a graphics editor like Photoshop. Just make sure that you have the legal rights to print the image, especially if you plan to sell it (That's right, you can even sell it on Spreadshirt). Or just simple text. You can play around with fonts and sizes and placement of the words. Their prices are totally reasonable, and it varies with what you're going to put on your shirt. Text alone is the cheapest, and they'll charge a bit more for every line of text. An image is slightly more, and an image and text combined is a bit more still.

So if you have ideas to make your own t-shirts but don't have the time or the desire right now to get your hands dirty and learn how to do this at home, check out Spreadshirt and make your own t-shirts in minutes online.

Why would you want to make your own t-shirts?

It's easy enough to learn how to make your own t-shirts, but why would you do it? I'm sure there are almost as many reasons as there are t-shirt makers out there, but let's look at some of the most common.

1. Creative expression. How about the basic need for self-expression and an outlet for creativity? That's probably the number one reason out there. Call it wearable art. And not only that....it's practical art. Why just put your artwork on your walls when you can put it on yourself and wear it around? This self-expression could be something right out of your head, or maybe even something (obscure or obvious) from a musician, a song, a film or a book that you relate to.

2. Looking unique is another huge motivator. BEEN TO A MALL LATELY? Then you know what I'm talking about. The mall's terrific if you're looking for fake 80's style T's or ones for made-up camps and teams. What's interesting about that? Oh...looking for an obnoxious baby T that says "spoiled" or "slut" or "precious"? Great!!! The mall's got deals for you! Head on down! But if you want to say something just a wee bit more original and a lot less irritating to others, make your own. It's so hard to look original these days unless you buy only vintage clothing, or have lots of money to spend on chique designer stuff. I can't even find jeans that don't have fake fading on them. A couple of years ago it was even worse. At least now you can find jeans where the fading is subtle, but it's almost always going to be there. Same goes for T-shirts, especially for women. It's either verrrrry plain, or it's obnoxious and cutesy. Guy's T-shirts are less annoying, but there's not much variety. So if you can't find want you want in the stores, sometimes ya just gotta make it yourself.

3. It's fun. This one's simple. Any and all of the techniques you'll learn (in future posts on this blog, or elsewhere) to make your own t-shirts are absolutely entertaining and it's always satisfying to do something yourself. You can pick and choose from methods that are super cheap, super fast and super easy, to ones that require more of an investment of energy and time. It's an activity you can do on your own, or with friends and family. It could even be a good date. You can bond over a day of t-shirt making. With friends, you could make shirts that go together or compliment each other in some funny way. Or make shirts for your own band or sports team.

4. Save money. Once you have the basic tools and supplies, you can use them over and over again with cheap solid color t-shirts. You can even recycle old shirts that are dying on you by taking them apart and reconstructing, or printing or bleaching on parts you don't like.

5. Maybe even make money. Who knows? Once you become a pro, you can use your new skills to start a little business and sell your stuff on the internet, in a retail store, or at local craft shows or fairs. Also, you could print up t-shirts to advertise other ventures you have going. Maybe a band, a business, or a film. Spread the word by wearing it, give them away or sell them to create a buzz.

6. Totally unique presents. Who doesn't want to give really cool, original and personal gifts. It could even be something that really speaks to something you shared with that person, a special place or an inside joke. Or it could be something beautiful or hilarious that they will love forever.

7. A very useful skill. Don't forget that the techniques you learn to make t-shirts are totally transferable. You can use them to create or beautify lots of things, bags, jackets, baby clothes or bibs, bed linens, umbrellas. Basically anything made of cloth, even lots of things made of wood or paper and some other materials. Again, great for your own use and pleasure, but also there must be a gazillion more gift ideas here once we break from the idea of t-shirts alone. Learning to make your own t-shirts could open the door to new worlds of craftiness in your future.

Make Your Own T-Shirts

A good T-shirt is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Finding the right places to buy them used or new is great and there's an art to that too, but learning to make your own t-shirts is a thrill that goes beyond the great find. You made it! You can walk proudly around town, chest out and chin high knowing that you made that scrap of cloth on your torso beautiful. That can mean a lot of things. Eventually I'll have blog posts featuring all the different ways to make t-shirts with lots of specific pointers.

Do it online. There are lots of websites now where you can send in a design and have them print it for you. That's great too. You can still feel creative without having to physically produce anything. You're the brains behind the final product. Some of those sites only work with text in a select variety of fonts. You just enter in a slogan and have some limited control over how it looks. Some other t-shirt making sites have a supply of designs and you can search through their database for images and put those and even combinations of them on a shirt for yourself. And there are some websites where you can send in your own photos or Photoshop images and they will have it silkscreened, which basically means the sky is the limit on your design possibilities. And with some of these companies you can actually sell that design to their customers and earn money each time someone buys it. My favorite is Spreadshirt.

Iron-on. For those of you who actually want to make the thing, with no go-between, the simplest and fastest way is by using a iron-on transfer. The iron-on method is also the one that requires the least amount of equipment and learning. It has its downsides too. It can rub or peel off with time and in the dryer. But nobody's perfect. You can even buy iron transfer paper and photocopy it at a copy shop, or better yet...print right onto it from your own computer. And you can adjust the image using a Photo editor like Photoshop or something similar to play with the contrast, but of course, I'll write about that in much more depth in a future entry.

Silk screen. Learning how to screen print is really fun, and is probably the highest quality and most permanent way to get an image onto your shirt. The process is much more involved, and it will take more time, attention and supplies. For me, all of that is more reason to be super stoked about it. It feels more like a project and it's just that kind of thing that leaves me feeling like I really DID something. And once you learn it, you're going to want to print on everything you can get your hands on. If you're thinking of starting your own t-shirt business, I think silkscreening is definitely the way to go.

So far we've only talked about ways to get an image onto your t-shirt. There are of course about a million other ways to make a t-shirt your own. You can work with dyes and bleaches using techniques which are totally simple or intricate and complex to give you exactly the look you're going for. You can sew things onto the shirt, or you can take a shirt (or two or three) completely apart and reconstruct it in many fabulous ways.

This blog is part of my new project. I want to explore the many ways you can make your own t-shirts and highlight them here with tips, techniques and how-to's. I'll also talk later about tools you'll need for the different methods, where you can find them and how much they'll cost you. Please check back often because I'll be exploring all of these areas in time. I also welcome comments and suggestions. If you have ideas you want to share, please feel free.