# Pressed my first rhinestone shirt today.



## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

I am using the ACS system with the 24 MAXX cutter.

Sandy helped me setup the cutter and guided me step by step into making my first design.
It was very easy..
I cut it out using the new way of sticking the black rubber to the cutting board it worked 99% i only had one hole to weed out.

I stuck the rubber template onto a thin plastic cutting board i picked up on sale and then placed that into a glass cooking oven pan and then dumped the rhinestones on it and shook it all around and got all the stones in place.

Placed the transfer tape on it and pulled up the stones with no problem.

Today i cranked up my press and did my first rhinestone press and i am happy to say it worked 100%. No problems.

I did a girls shirt and it looks super good except i had it to low.
My wife put it on on the design is a bit low under the chest area.
But that was a good start.

Thanks Sandy!

Going to be trying vinyl next.


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## lizziemaxine (Nov 14, 2007)

Congratulations. You will be an old pro at this in a few days.


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## DTFuqua (Jun 26, 2008)

Placement can be difficult on women because of the way their front end is made.Some poke out at the top, some the bottom and various other configurations. The way I figure out placement for my wife will not work on a person I'm not real friendly with so I will have the problem of figuring that out to as I anticipate the largest market for the bling will be younger women. A guy could get arrested trying to figure out where to place the design if he used the finger method of measuring for placement while a young girl held a shirt up against her chest! Good luck and enjoy.


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## dan-ann (Oct 25, 2007)

Oh congratulations - I am so envious. I had my first session with Sandy and then the xmas orders started coming in for my embroidery business and I found I can not do both at the same time. So after the Holidays I will start over from the beginning. Good luck


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

EddieM said:


> .
> 
> Thanks Sandy!
> 
> Going to be trying vinyl next.


You are VERY welcome, Ed! I enjoyed our phone class on Saturday afternoon and pleased that we got all the way from getting the computer to communicate with the cutter to designing and cutting out your first pattern. Very successful star! 

Don't forget to change blades and lower the pressure for the vinyl.... oh... and reverse the image! I always forget to mirror my image when I cut the vinyl you iron into shirts!


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

DTFuqua said:


> Placement can be difficult on women because of the way their front end is made.Some poke out at the top, some the bottom and various other configurations. The way I figure out placement for my wife will not work on a person I'm not real friendly with so I will have the problem of figuring that out to as I anticipate the largest market for the bling will be younger women. A guy could get arrested trying to figure out where to place the design if he used the finger method of measuring for placement while a young girl held a shirt up against her chest! Good luck and enjoy.


Your post is really cracking me up here! 

I bet one of our kind female business owners here could provide some tips on how to place rhinestone designs in the best location when you are making them to sell to the "general female market." If not, then I have a wonderful new customer here in Arizona who has already done several rhinestone jobs for females and I'll see if she can provide us some guidelines for placement... such as how many inches from the neckline, unless it's a certain higher or lower cut. Although, maybe this has probably already been discussed here at this forum. Off to search the archives!


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

Okay... that didn't take long! (This forum is SUCH a wealth of information!) I found this thread regarding embroidery designs and there's a link to a site with guidelines on placement. 

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/general-t-shirt-selling-discussion/t21360.html


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## DTFuqua (Jun 26, 2008)

Thanks Sandy. That chart from the embroidery site is pretty good. I downloaded it and will keep a print out close at hand. There is also one from Direct2Shirt.com that I have but the problem is the extremes between women when it comes to breast size and shape. The "charts" will work very well for slender women with normal necklines even with a baby doll T and almost any shape woman with the generic type T-shirt but what about the women that want very low necklines and have either natural large breasts or store bought ones? There are differences in where they want to position themselves when not constrained and this is getting to technical but you know what I'm getting at. What do you do ?


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

Well, I'm not in the business of making shirts to sell to others... I only make shirts for myself. So, I just looked at the ones I bought from department stores and I've used that as a guideline.... just placing the top of the design about 3" - 4" from the top of the neckline. 

If I were going to go into the business of making shirts, I'd probably go visit a number of stores in the mall, looking for rhinestone designs and take along a ruler and notebook and measure a range of sizes of shirts with the same design and write down how far down these designs start. If you see any extremely high or extremely low measurements, toss those out... go for the average distance and note how much it varies from the smallest size shirt to the largest. You'll just have to let go of the fact that all women are not shaped the same. And if their breasts are hanging down at their belly button, well, that's their issue. That's definitely not where the rhinestone design should be located!


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## DTFuqua (Jun 26, 2008)

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be cute or gross but I have trouble figuring out the proper way to say things so they won't offend people. My anticipated market is flea markets and know from years ago that "dancers" can be the best customers of all things fancy and they can be particular about how clothes look and set or hang on them and they are always showing a lot of cleavage and there can be a lot of people watching when they are in your booth. There probably isn't going to be a "one size fits all" solution for this type situation but I'm someone that likes to have all the answers to problems before they come up. I don't think fast on my feet.


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

lol I definitely wasn't offended. In fact, I've been sitting here laughing at your dilemma... sorry! It's just kind of funny thinking about you poor guys trying to figure out how to deal with this issue and also post about it without possibly offending any of the members. Anyhow, don't worry about me! I'm good! And I'm still hoping that one of our experienced members here will generously share some guidelines on how they choose rhinestone design placement for the shirts they're selling.


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## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

I am now on hold till after the Holidays we are taking off today.

I built a new PC and i was just going to print driving directions and did not have the printer hooked up.

Then i had not installed the printer driver software so i was doing that and it told me my printer is not supported for this new Win 7 so now i am downloading new drivers for win 7 from the HP website and it is going very slow.

I am taking my new shirt we me i will try and take a photo and post it in a few days.


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## SandyMcC (Jul 23, 2009)

Have a safe trip, Ed! And a fun time, too!


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## Vicki Flores (Jun 24, 2009)

SandyMcC said:


> Okay... that didn't take long! (This forum is SUCH a wealth of information!) I found this thread regarding embroidery designs and there's a link to a site with guidelines on placement.
> 
> http://www.t-shirtforums.com/general-t-shirt-selling-discussion/t21360.html


Thanks for doing the "legwork" Sandy! Looking up and posting a link to the page that has the distance from neckline info was a welcome timesaver. Appreciate it!!


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