I'm in LOVE!!!

As a small business owner, a mom and a housewife my time is limited and well there is never enough of it, as I am sure ALL moms can relate! My business is a "crafty" business we do everything from sewing to heat press vinyl, and of course birthday invites and party supplies.

We have always had a vinyl cutter, but it was a very basic one that I used/use for fondant (the blade and sheets are different so there is no cross contamination), we loved it and used the crap out of it, still have it on the shelf downstairs as a just in case.

This year after a mountain of research I decided to buy an upgraded version, well oops I guess I didn't research enough because the one I bought (Cricut air explore) wouldn't do what I needed it to do. So back to the research bored I went. After Extensive research I finally decide to go out and buy new, a Silhouette Cameo 3. I got mine off Amazon as it was a better deal than Micheals because it came with all kinds of neat add-ons.

It arrived fast (I am a Prime member) and as soon as it got here my excitement turned to dear god how am I ever going to figure this out. Please keep in mind we were going from a non-digital easy to use machine that I had been using for 8 years! So many parts and pieces and of course the instructions are online and I am that person who if there is no paper instructions I just fiddle around until I figure it out, oh who am I kidding even if there are paper instructions I do the same things.

I get it all set up and excited and installed the software, update the machines software and here I am ready to go! Well dang it the whole reason I bought this thing was so I could design anything I wanted from any image I wanted. Well it turns out after googling and reading post after post, in order to do that I have but the paid for software. Okay I can do that! Buy the software now I am lost because how on earth do I make the file type it needs without buying expensive software. Within my search I found a free program with easy to follow instructions and easy to use it is called inkscape  .
The instructions on how to create the .dfx file you need is here.  It is a lot like using my embroidery software.

I couldn't be happier with my decision and it is so much fun to use. I have used my machine with construction paper, card stock and vinyl so far but my next task is going to be print and cut stickers!!!

Printers

Printable vinyl, we love it!!! There is only one down side and that is printers. We have gone through so many printers trying to find ONE that will work properly with the vinyl we have found there is only one that semi works better than any other one and that is the Epson WF-4630, no its not a photo printer.

Before you start talking giant solvent printer, one they are extremely pricey, two they take up an insane amount of room and three they require a special vent system because it is extremely toxic to breath in the fumes.

We tried Cannon photo printers, Epson photo printers (including the new XP-6000) and HP photo printers. Every signal one of them leave streaks or giant globs of ink on the vinyl. Once you put it through the heat press after it has been printed on the photo printers it loses almost all of its colour and looks like it has been washed 100 times.

I have read blog after blog, and 1000's of tips and we keep going back to the WF-4630 because its the only one that works at least semi right not always perfect but better than the photo ones.

Today after spending 2 days fighting with the new XP-6000 I took it back to the store because whats the point of something that loses it's colour after going through the heat press. I have finally figured it out!! I think I know what the problem is with the photo printers. They are liquid ink the WF-4630 is powder ink, no not laser actual powder ink. So no globs.

Here is the trick with the WF-4630 you can not tell it that there is photo paper or it smears and what a mess it makes of the page and rollers. You have to tell you it that its normal paper and do high quality printing and in settings you need to turn off high speed print. You need to make sure your heads are always clean before you print and always always print on normal paper first because if the quality of the photo is horrible than it will print horrible no mater what you do.

We use special printable vinyl that we buy in bulk but we used to get the printable sheets from micheals and they worked okay but don't last as long on the shirts.

We rely on our printer and the printable vinyl to put basic images on shirts or other clothing so it has to work, be consistent and fast because we are always in a hurry and of course people leave things to the last minute.