It is always suprising how much activity is going on in your back garden, wildlife is busy going about its business quite often unnoticed. We have just completed some promotional T-shirts for Handykam who offer  every solution imaginable for keeping  an eye on what is going on in your back yard. Nest box cameras can reveal a whole other world happening right under your nose which we are often much too busy to take notice of.

In addition to nest boxes there are systems for observing bats (we have a few of these here at Advertees) and hedgehogs. Big brother for your garden if you like.

Our larger domestic type birds obviously don’t require such discreet devices to catch the action, they will pose for cameras at every opportunity. Pictured here loving this seasons monster sunflowers Muriel and Louise make sure we photograph their best side.

Every now and then we come across T-shirt prints which have all the qualities we like, water-based printing is a must, good design for screen print is another plus.

T shirts which are organic, or at least sweat shop free are always good. The T shirts featured tick all these boxes, a promotion for a UK tour of, The Present, a new Thomas Campbell film. The follow up to surf films Sprout, and The Seedling  covers West Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Sumatra, Java, Hawaii and California. For more information about the film and the venues visit thesurfscreen.com.

Looking at the featured surfers and locations this is probably going to be another classic, we can’t wait to see it.

The tour dates and venues are:

* Wednesday 22nd April  The Royal Cinema, St Ives
* Saturday 25th April The Sallis Beeney Theatre, Brighton
* Friday 1st May  The Carnmarth Hotel, Newquay
* Saturday 2nd May Woodlane Theatre, Falmouth
* Saturday 9th May The Lighthouse Centre, Poole
* Sunday 10th May The Cube Cinema, Bristol
* Saturday 16th May Braunton Village Hall, Braunton
* Sunday 17th May  The Reel Cinema, Kingsbridge
* Saturday 23rd May St Merryn Village Hall, St Merryn

The Newman screens have been a massive investment in terms of time, but the benefits are already becoming apparent.

We were a little apprehensive about taking on Newman rollers as there are many screen printers who claim they are too difficult to use. But we decided the good reports were far more prevalent, many T-Shirt printers claiming they could never return to using glued screens. So what are the benefits of Newman’s? A tighter screen mesh (measured in Newtons) allows for

1. More accurate registration
2. Quicker set up times
3. A more uniform deposit of ink on the shirt

The screens can be re-tensioned, so these advantages will never be lost, and the life of the screen mesh is prolonged. We also benefit from savings on screen emulsion, and inks. However there are some problems to be overcome

1. The initial time investment is substantial, there is a lot to be learnt
2. The various sundries required are not easily available in the UK
3. Newman roller screens are a serious financial investment
4. Screens will tear easily at high tension

All the above are not really ongoing problems, the return on investment put these initial set up costs and frustrations into perspective. The screens are incredibly well made, our screens were acquired second hand, they had been very well used, but once cleaned up they were as good as new. We have not yet invested in a stretching table from Newman, and at the moment we are happy to stretch screens by hand, we can achieve tensions that are nearly double those of our glued frames. This was only possible with a few tips from Butch at Stretch Devices this video quite possibly saved us hours of torment, we are way behind Butch on his time of 7 minutes for a screen but working on it

So far so good, back to looking for locking strip, and extending the screen drying cabinet. Then our next job is to organise the pin registration system, this is where we should be able to reclaim all the time we have invested over the last 2 weeks.

Advertees T shirt printing with Newman roller screens.

2011 update: As we had hoped, these screens are really paying for themselves. The initial time and money investment is long forgotten. We now have a stretching table , and an extended screen room allowing Advertees to process higher numbers of screens per day without losing any of the stencil quality.

To acheive an all over T shirt print, a particular kind of screen printing machine is required. Belt printers are capable of this kind of printing and can produce great results, But For many people this kind of printing is not affordable with very high minimum orders , one possible way around this is to enter competitions run by design by humans on a regular basis, their website is packed full of some of the most inspirational T shirt designs you can imagine, there are hundreds of fantastic examples of all over T shirt printing on this site.
Unfortunately Advertees do not have this facility at present, with nearly all large format and all over belt printing machines being operated overseas, but it is certainly something we can aspire to. Right now we are able to offer large printing areas of 40cm x 50cm, but we do prefer to avoid seams where possible. Waterbased inks are recommended for large T-shirt designs, discharge printing inks are generally used for dark shirts. Below is a picture of some larger T shirt prints going through our gas dryer.