Friday, January 29, 2010

Bitter Sweet

We started the day feeling really confident and pumped. We made a quick trip to the art supply store and bought a kit complete with all the supplies we needed: a screen, emulsion (photosensitive), emulsion remover, and a squeegee. And then it was pretty much downhill from there.

When we opened the kit, the instruction might as well have been in Chinese because they did not make any sense to us. We decided to wing it.

To spare you all the gory details we basically ended up spending an hour in a laundry room, that was pitch black might we add, only to find that we had completed the process wrong and would have to start over.

But our good luck doesn't end there. When we tried to remove the emulsion from the screen, it wouldn't come off! One bottle of emulsion remover, half a bottle of Windex, a quarter of Tide detergent, one bottle of nail polish remover, some vinegar, and two bottles of dish detergent later (hey, we were desperate) the emulsion still hadn't come off completely. But we reduced it to a faint stain.

At that point we were pretty down but we are not giving up! We are giving it another go this week. Maybe this time we will follow the instructions better (or actually read them). Wish us luck...again!

Here are some picture documenting this "tragic" event. On the bright side, we learned a way NOT to silkscreen.


1. "The Sweatshop."
2. Making the stencil.
3. Waiting for the stencil to burn onto the screen.
4. Still waiting... (from above).
5. Still hasn't burned through... (from below).
6. Okay, crazy...
7. Cleaning the screen.
8. Lookin' good Ale, lookin' good.
9. Scrubbing away.

Hopefully when you check back with us we will have pictures of our design printed on a t-shirt.

Tootles,
Alex, Mamie & Ale

How It All Started

It started on a Saturday.

As we walked through Nieman Marcus, Ale noticed a t-shirt that resembled the print Alex had made in art class. "Hey!" Mamie said, "we could so make a shirt like that!" And after that, we were no longer drooling over the Christian Louboutin shoes or the Chanel purses; all we focused on was starting up this new t-shirt business. And that's how we came up with A(squared) + M.

Fashion has always been important to us. Mamie's role model is Anna Wintour, Ale has an infatuation with Marc Jacobs, and Alex is the next Rachel Zoe, we promise.

Even though we admire these influential figures, we wanted to create a style of our own. A style that would emulate the girl we strive to be. Someone who is confident, independent, a risk-taker, charming, and effortlessly chic. The look we are going for with our t-shirts encompasses all of these qualities and creates a vintage "street-style" look.

Not only did we want to make stylish t-shirts, we wanted to raise awareness about something we care about as well. A(squared) + M is a way for us to embrace our interests in fashion and the arts, while doing just that. We chose to support March of Dimes because it is an organization that is close to our hearts. March of Dimes is an organization that focuses on bettering the health of babies, specifically the prevention of birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. A(squared) + M donates a percentage of its profits to the organization in hopes of making a difference in a baby's life.

Our goal is to donate $500 dollars in the next 6 months to March of Dimes, starting after our first order.

So today we started experimenting with different ways that we could get our design on these t-shirts. It didn't quite work out like we planned. It wasn't consistent, the print came out too light, there was a lot of smudging going on--overall, it just didn't work.

Our next plan is to try silk-screening. We'll let you know how that goes soon, wish us luck!
We will be posting pictures so don't be a stranger and visit our blog again!

Tootles,
Alex, Mamie & Ale