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Fun with FeatherLight and Summer Fashions

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by USCutter

Keep it light and breezy this summer with lightweight, wearable, and high-performance heat transfer vinyls from USCutter.

5 WAYS LESS CAN BE MORE ON ALL YOUR SUMMER FASHIONS:

1.) Thin Vinyl Looks Better on Thin Fashion Fabrics:

New FeatherLight by Siser, exclusive to uscutter.com, is only 1.6 mils thick! Compare to EasyWeed at 6 mils, FeatherLight is almost 75% thinner(!) and sticks to Lycra/Spandex stretch fitnesswear!

FeatherLight designs are lighweight and feel great!

2.) Thin Feels Good on the Skin:

FeatherLight is very similar to Stretch in appearance, and works on materials besides cotton and polyester like thin stretchy fashion fabrics. It is mostly matte with a muted sheen like EasyWeed but its feel is more rubbery vs. papery. The biggest difference you’ll feel is on the inside of the shirt. Lightweight decals made from FeatherLight just feel more wearable and natural on the skin.

Spidery-thin details on a hat. Use negative space and save on materials!

3.) Save Money on Materials with Spare Designs:

Use of thin details and negative space not only looks really sharp, it’s economical. The hat pictured here, crafted with thin FeatherLight vinyl, has a spartan look and feel to it, but will invite attention as people mentally fill in the rest of the image.

Fashion luxurious logos with a soft metallic sheen with Color Theory Thin Foil!

4.) Thin is In for Luxurious Logos:

Color Theory Thin Foil designs have a soft metallic sheen for high-end logos and graphics with urban flair, and are lightweight and wearable!

Get FeatherLight Today! 4 different colors to start!

5.) Get Only the Amount of Materials You Need! Order by the Foot or Sheet!

FeatherLight is available in our Order By the Foot program, which allows you to get only the amount of vinyl you need at a competitive price, in the widest possible selection of colors for short runs and diverse projects with specific color requirements. For more savings, check out our Summer Siser Sale, where we have EasyWeed, Holographic, and Metallic vinyl available by the foot and by the sheet!

Fun Alternate Uses for Oracal Frosted and Etched Glass Window Films

Posted on June 20, 2016June 20, 2016 by USCutter

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, who’s the most elegant & functional of them all?

Oracal 8510 (look of etched glass) and 8810 (frosted glass) are privacy films often found in corporate offices or restaurants to provide light-blocking and filtering opacity on glass surfaces as well as elegant understated cut vinyl graphics and lettering.

Chic and private glass coverings provide an elegant secluded ambiance.

And while that might be the most common use for these films, it really is just the tip of the iceberg.

Corporate Branding (Courtesy of Orafol Americas)

Privacy screen (Courtesy of Orafol Americas)

There are a host of other decorating and functional possibilities: imagine soft mint-green light slanting in through your kitchen skylight like stained glass, for example. Vinyl “Etched Glass” effects are temporary and removable, which is not the case with real glass-etching techniques that require permanent corrosive creams. Your vinyl installation can be as temporary or permanent as you need it to be.

Check out this blog from the Silhouette School which explains how to cut designs and apply the material, as well as shows amazing uses for it from temporary parental warnings to “BRUSH YOUR TEETH” on the bathroom mirror, to “Glitter” designs on phone cases and bracelets, which are all the rage in the garment heat-transfer-vinyl marketplace.

Photo courtesy of Melissa, http://www.silhouetteschoolblog.com/ .

And here’s just one more crazy idea. It’s wedding season. For your clients or loved ones looking to save a little dough on classy elegant drinkware for their big day, consider a project like this. We applied different colors of 8810 (Frosted Glass) signature decals onto low-cost acrylic drinkware obtained at the local bed and bath superstore, resulting in a functional and elegant keepsake.

to Mimosas, Frosted Glass adds a touch of class and distinction to the bar at your upcoming wedding!

Try out all the 8810 colors at once in this exciting new bundle, and save over 30%!

Doing the Math for Expanding into Custom Cap and Dye-Sub Printed Mug Production

Posted on May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 by USCutter

There are an array of products one can start making immediately with an enterprising mindset and the basic equipment for this business: a decent vinyl cutter and heat press.

Vinyl graphics and letters for signs and indoor walls, decals for shirts, etc. Not surprisingly, the stuff that’s easiest to do, with the lowest up-front investment in equipment, also presents the greatest barriers to successfully differentiating yourself in a crowded marketplace.

So what’s true for any business, is true for this one. To have success, one has to diversify one’s product offerings, and ideally specialize in a niche with plenty of room to grow. Two products you may not have considered to expand into yet are customized ballcaps and dye-sublimation printed mugs.

We’d like to present the business case here for expanding into both processes. Both processes require an investment in specialized equipment, but the following math will demonstrate you can break even on cap production with sales of only 40 caps, and you can buy all the equipment for dye-sublimation printing (with applications ranging from printed mugs, to photo panels, to shirts, and more) with sales of only about 180 mugs!

CUSTOM CAPS:

Decorate hats with the HTV of your choice, Chemica DuoFlex (pictured) or Siser EasyWeed.

What you need…

A vinyl cutter, a Transforsa Digital Cap Heat Press, 15″ x 5yd Roll of Siser EasyWeed.

Specialized Cap Heat Press + Free Hats for only $264.99!

Assuming you cut a design 4 in wide x 2.5 in high, you can produce 180 heat transfer vinyl decals from a 5 yard roll of EasyWeed ($35.65). This works out to be about 20 cents/hat in vinyl.

The cost of blank hats is going to be your main expense. The cost of hat blanks and vinyl to produce 180 hats is $575.20. 1 hat costs about $3.20 to make. Let’s say you can sell that hat for $12.

Profit/hat = $8.80. The cost of your equipment ($264.99) + the necessary hats (36 more) = $372.90. Divide that by your profit/hat ($8.80), and you’ve almost completely paid for your equipment with sales of about 40 hats!

DYE-SUB PRINTED MUGS:

Put family photos or any image on a mug with vibrant dye-sublimation inks.

What you need…

A Sawgrass Dye-Sublimation Printer, a mug press or 5-in-1 multi-press, sublimation transfer paper, dye-sublimation inks, and cases of mugs.

The cost of the equipment in this bundle (SG400 printer + 5-in-1 heat press + mug paper) is only $799. It only costs about 10 cents in ink to print 1 5″x7″ mug design. The cost to decorate a case of 36 mugs would be $3.60 in ink, $3.24 in paper, and $56.99 for the cost of the mugs.

All the equipment and supplies you need to get started sublimating mugs for only $799.

Total cost of supplies to decorate 36 mugs = $63.83 –> $1.77/mug. If you sell the mugs at $8/ea, that works out to be $6.23 profit/mug.

At that clip, paying for all the equipment and supplies (printer, heat press, ink, paper, and mugs) you needed to make 180 mugs would cost you about $1118. Divide this by our profit/mug, and with sales of about 180 mugs, you’ve just paid for all your equipment and supplies, and each additional mug sold is almost pure profit! And a dye-sub printer comes in handy for so much more, from shirts, to jerseys, to Wunderboard metal photo panels, to clear vinyl, and beyond!