Ever thought about creating a custom tshirt as a gift?

Over the past few years I’ve created quite a few one-off tshirts as gifts for close friends and family. Custom tshirts are always well received, because they are gifts with personality, thought, and sometimes maybe even the labour of love.

Depending on your budget and the amount of effort you’re willing to put in, there’s plenty of methods of producing your tees.

Have you ever tried screen printing at home - it’s heaps of fun! Just hit up your local art shop for a basic screen-printing kit, grab a few blank tees from your local store and bob’s your uncle.

Um, perhaps you will look as cool as this guy with your custom Chrissy tee…

Iron-on ‘patch hacking’ (where you find old school retro iron-on patches and ‘remix’ them into new designs) is another method of creating custom tees with less mess.

For the graphic designers amongst us, who are proficient with the use of graphics applications such as those contained within the Adobe Creative Suite (incidentally, if you haven’t upgraded to Adobe CS4 yet you should think about it, Adobe is offering a limited offer at the moment where you can Save up to $200 on eligible upgrades to CS4), print on demand tshirt sites are a hassle free way of producing your custom tees.

My favorite online store for print-on-demand is Spreadshirt as they offer American Apparel blank tshirts, good print quality, reasonable prices, and have set up local bases in a variety of countries to minimize delivery expenses and production time. Cafepress is another option - I view them as the cheaper alternative, slightly lower on quality but it comes down to the old adage that ‘you get what you pay for’.

If any readers have printed, or intend on printing tshirts as Christmas presents I’d love to hear from you - just post a comment using the Comments link below this article.

So if you’re stuck for Christmas ideas on a budget, then maybe a custom tshirt for a loved (or not so loved one) is the answer.

Custom T-Shirts. Order Now!

**UPDATE** Spreadshirt currently has free delivery for the next 6 days (you have until the end of this week to place your order). If you’re as interested in shopping malls as I am, then sitting in your comfy chair designing your Chrissy gifts online is sounding even more promising!

It would be in your best interests (because I know some very very large men who dress in black and carry chains and baseball bats) to subscribe to tshirtalert.com’s mailing list now.

Not only will you keep your knee-caps intact, but you will also be the first to hear about exclusive discounts for tshirtalert readers, the latest tee news, and limited edition tshirt releases.

…and um….*hiccup*….the free beer just ran out. Sorry.

*burrrrrrrrrp*

In order to qualify for a free tee, it’s a pretty darn simple process. All you need do is visit the Gitchers website and:

1. Tell Gitchers what t-shirt you want (whether it be your favourite company, sport, website…whatever floats your boat)

2. Businesses search through the database of people who want free tees (but your personal details are kept hidden)

3. If you’re one of the chosen ones, you’ll score a free t-shirt in the mail

Look out, they’re coming to gitcher!

This is an innovation in the online tshirt industry, though I know some folk who exercise caution when it comes to submitting their personal details to third party sites who guarantee nothing in return.

I’d like to hear from anyone who has enrolled in the Gitcher program and would like to share their story. Maybe you have already received a free tee from them (and if so, are you happy with it?).  Or maybe you’ve got a gripe about the system, and think it is all an evil ploy to collect personal information?  Just click the “Comments” tab below to share your story.

Four of tees, “The Christian Right is Neither,” “God Bless America (and the rest of the world),” “Intelligent Design is Stupid” and “Believer in Science” are on sale for $12.99, for both men and women. Quantities are limited so get in faster than fat kid to a cupcake, or you’ll miss out!

Progress Wear.

The way it works is the tried and tested model - independant artists upload their t-shirt designs to Ziraxia, members vote on the designs, and the most popular designs are manufactured for sale.

Any winning design is licensed by Ziraxia, who then manage the sale of the tees and pay the artists royalties.

There’s a new design added to the Ziraxia range every few days.

The tees are screen printed on Hanes Beefy and American Apparel tees.

The smooth dudes as Ziraxia run a special from Tuesday through Monday, every week, putting 4 designs on sale for $12.99 a pop.

Ziraxia