I'd like to thank the few intrepid souls that joined me in the T-Shirt challenge. I won't speak for any of them, but the experience was enlightening. Okay, in truth it was daunting, frustrating, challenging, and just about broke my spirit. I decided to skip the tried and true methods of t-shirt creation that I am use to using, and went down a path of exploration. Exploration and a tight deadline are always a dangerous combination, but I survived it. I learned a lot about some products and processes I've never worked with before, but I learned even more about what happens when an experiment goes wrong, terribly wrong. We've all been there... you've got an idea in your head but, no matter what you do, you just can't seem to get the outcome you were hoping for. I had told my wife that this was just going to be an "experiment". Thank goodness she kept reminding me of that fact. It kept me from imploding every time something went astray, which happened often. Notes to self for the future. Don't trust what a product says it will do.
They apparently never really expect us to read that stuff. Nothing I used worked as described on the packaging! When in doubt, ask an expert. Every time I hit a wall, I could find someone that could tell me how I had gone horribly wrong. If only I had found them prior... Test everything first. Commit after you know what it's going to do. Keep laughing. There is no such thing as failure when you are exploring and experimenting, it's just an unexpected outcome. While we're at it. Here's a few brave souls and their experiments. Aaron Woodard, Filip Zywica, Aaron Wolf, Belinda Morris, Brian McElligott, Felicia Cano, Kaisa Tuulenkari, Luis Reyes and Seomox from coloring picture pages graphycs. Want to see more about their process, and a few folks showing off some of the shirts they made outside the challenge? Swing on over to the discussion. Just because the challenge is over it doesn't mean the experimenting and fun have to be over. Keep sharing your successes and "failures" so that we can all continue to learn.
