The Dollar Tree and Yudu Project Part 1

2010-01-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

I finally had time to go pick up some emulsion remover so that I would have the bare minimum to try my first project. I went to a Michaels which is relatively near and it must have been my lucky day because next door was a dollar store. I need to give EXTREME credit to the dollar store because I found some things there today that probably saved me well over $20 today in supplies cost. As I've mentioned prior, I'm trying to do this the smart way and do it without buying a whole bunch of unecessary supplies at first. I've read about a lot of people buying multiple bottles of color and accessories to find that they only used the Yudu once or twice before it ended up collecting dust in the closet/under the bed, etc. Although I do eventually plan on buying a larger size emulsion remover in a different brand, liquid emulsion or capillary sheets to replace the Yudu emulsion sheets and speedball brand paints, I'm holding off just yet. One downside with the Yudu is that the supplies are so darn expensive. The upside to this is that the Yudu'er community has found multiple alternatives which work just as well or better.

I've read that a good way to save on the amount of emulsion remover you use is to dilute it with water and put it in a spray bottle. Yudu sells the set of spray bottle (it comes empty) and 2 oz emulsion remover bottle for $14.99. Yah, it's a really expensive empty bottle. This is pretty much the retail price you will find at most places. You can also buy the 2 oz bottle on it's own for $7.99. A 2 oz bottle is a really small amount for that price. I can imagine that if you didn't use the spray bottle method and just poured it on the screen to clean, it would be gone within 2 or so uses.

While I was looking at these at the store I remembered the dollar place next door so before I bought anything, I ran over there. Turns out they had these great spray bottles that sprayed good mist which would work out perfect. In addition I found a whole bunch of blank t-shirts in multiple colors. I had to stop myself from buying a whole bunch of them and just bought 3 red one in size kids small. For the 3 t-shirts and spray bottle I spent $4. I went back to Michaels and used my 40% coupon to buy the little bottle of emulsion remover so with tax it was about $4 and change. WoW, so happy that I spent under $10 on these supplies today. What a deal!

Now all I have left is to decide on the design I want to print on my first run of these red shirts. I have a couple ideas which I'm still tossing around. Stayed tuned for part 2 of the dollar tree project!

Yudu Machine in Possesion

2010-01-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

Here I will chronicle my Yudu machine experience, the good, the bad and the ugly. I saw an ad for the machine at my local Michael's and didn't really have much of an idea of what it was. All I knew was that it was $100 off of the regular retail price. I later did a little more research and found out what kind of screen printing magic could be done with it. For those of you not in thhe know, the Yudu machine is a table top screen printing system. After seeing some project examples I was hooked and bought it a week later for $199 on sale. The only additional item I've bought so far is another set of emulsion sheets. I have a lot of projects in mind but just haven't gotten myself together to start anything as of yet. I did take the machine out of the box to make sure it included all of the contents and plugged it in. All the lights turned on and it seemed to be working properly. I have some speedball paints I had bought for a project a while back which I'm thinking about using for my first test run. Other than the black yudu paint which came with the machine I don't plan to buy any other paint colors just yet. The one item I need before I can do a test run is some emulsion remover. I need to go pick some up with my 50% coupon soon and then I'll be set.

I've spent a lot of time watching youtube tutorials and reading as much as I can on the www.yuduforums.com site. I'm hoping to learn from others mistakes and not make too many blunders. However, making mistakes is the best way to learn.

I've been looking around on www.craigslist.org and have found a few used yudu's for sale. Some over the price I paid, some under the price I paid. So if you're looking to save some $ and the yudu is not on sale, try looking on there. The lowest I saw was $100 and a few for $150. Most were being offered for $200+.

The Good, the Bad and the Not So Ugly

The Dollar Tree and Yudu Project Part 1

Yudu Machine in Possesion