Hi everyone 🙂 If you don’t already know me my name is Danielle, Owner of Mamas Little Tribe! I run my blog and 2 years ago started my t-shirt business. I have felt on my heart to want to share with others how I started my side hustle to bring in extra income for my family and I would love to share how I started my T-Shirt Business so you too can start a business and grow 🙂
A little back story I am married to my husband Ryan we have been together 14 years and married 10, we have three kids and they are our everything and my reason behind Mamas Little Tribe 🙂 At the time we were living in a 3 story 2 bedroom townhome. I was working nights serving at a local restaurant, my kids were doing school from home kindergarten and second grade and had a wild 2 year old toddler haha! I was so thankful for my job to allow me to stay home during the day with my kids, but I knew I didn’t want to do that forever, I wanted freedom, I wanted to be able to attend every practice/ game that I wanted to I didn’t want to miss out on any holidays with them!
So if you want something to change you have to change something. One day I was doodling dreaming of making a Mama Shirt and T-Shirts to match with my kids. My husband told me I should make T-shirts and I just laughed because I knew NOTHING on how to start a business or how to even make a T-Shirt haha. So I researched like crazy, did some trial and error and 2 years ago started my T-Shirt business I have now sold almost 3,000 items and I want to share with you how I started my business so you too can grow a successful business!!! Truthfully if I can do it you can do it!
Getting started doesn’t need to cost you a fortune, but it will be a little of investment for a whole lot of reward! For me I didn’t want to go cheap where I would just have to replace but I also didn’t start with the top of the line I want to get reliable and professional items. There are many different ways to make t-shirts from home, I will start with sharing what I do!
ITEMS YOU NEED TO START YOUR T-SHIRT BUSINESS
1. Heat Press : This is what you will need to heat your designs into your shirts, sweatshirts or items. I have now had my heat press for 2.5 years use every single day I absolutely love it. I love that it is very easy to use and has a slide out platen. Whether you want to use HTV, Screen prints, sublimation or heat transfer paper this heat press will work all of those options.
2. HTV or Heat Transfer Vinyl : I have found when first starting out siser easy weed is great because you can get on amazon, target or any craft store and they carry a lot of colors 🙂
3. Vinyl cutter: I use the cameo Silhouette 4 and have been using for the past 2.5 years would love to eventually get a circuit so I can use both and see if I see any differences, but I think you can’t go wrong either way.
4. Weeding tool for helping weed the vinyl I love this one and it is very affordable!
5. Teflon heat resistant pressing pillows. I press a lot of kids shirts so this goes under the shirt so the product you are pressing is even. It is not a need but I use mine with every kids shirt I press.
6. Something you probably already own, but will definitely need is a computer I use a macbook pro and have had mine for 5 years now, almost due for a new one here soon 🙂
7. Rollo printer: This is an investment but worth every penny!!! This is what I use to print out my labels for every single order and you can use to print other labels. I also use for printing my t-shirt washing instructions because this small printer does not take ink so you will never have to buy ink and ink is expensive so IMO this is worth it because you pay once and then never have to pay for ink as it is a thermal printer.
8. T-Shirts: I use bella canvas for a lot of my shirts because they are very soft and comfortable, but you can first just get something cheap to practice on.
You can check out my etsy shop here mamaslittletribe.etsy.com 🙂
Make sure to join my email list too, so you won’t miss more blog post sharing all about the items I use and things I do to run my business!
Hope ya’ll found this helpful and please leave any questions below and I will answer anything I can 🙂
