Atlanta Greek Picnic!

Discreetly Greek will be selling at the Atlanta Greek Picnic, June 19th!

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, meeting some of the vendors that have been in the game for awhile, and also get my brand out there. I think Discreetly Greek has created a good amount of true followers and fans of the site via social networking like Twitter and our Facebook fan page, but once we start doing more merch events,  hopefully we will be the first thing greeks think of when it comes to Greek nalia, especially fashionable paraphernalia.

I am hitting the road late tue night for the long 18 hr drive, to make sure I am there in time, and to check out events before the step show and picnic.

Besides all my supplies, postcards, signage and etc. Here are the designs I will be selling. I am releasing 4 new designs from the Spring Line, so people at the Atlanta Greek Picnic will get first chance to rock the new stuff!

If you’re looking to get wooped up in some Skee-Ball come out to the Marietta Dave & Busters at 6pm Thur June 17th for a Tweet and Greet.

Location: Dave N Buster’s Marietta : 2215 D&B drive, Marietta, Ga

See you guys in less then a week!

Shipping from A to Z

Hey everyone!

I wanted to post the detailed process of how the product goes from my tee, to bag and everything in between.

First is the making sure it is folded, I actually have something to help me fold all the shirts, make sure they are uniform,  neat, and can fit into the black poly mailer.

Next, I grab the tagging gun that I use  to do my hang tags.  It’s another way to help brand Discreetly Greek. Instead of being a static nalia company, I am striving to lean more toward the fashion/retail look of the apparel.

After the tagging, it’s time to pop into the mailers. I use a black poly self seal mailer. They have a cool little perforated area that allows customers to rip the package open easily. (That’s what she said)

I use Black mailers, to go with the “DISCREETLY” theme of the company. I plan on printing on them, and maybe doing custom boxes or mailers, but for now these work perfectly. I can fit up to three shirts usually without any problems.

I also make sure that, every order gets a personal pick of some candy. I try to get the Laffy Taffy to match the colors of the product. If it’s a Kappa or Delta shirt, I will send the cherry, or Alphas receive banana flavor etc.

It’s another fun way to help people remember me,  and my company. It’s also a wacky way for me to say thank you to to the customer!

I then weigh everything so I can print the labels at home. It saves a HUGE amount of time not having to wait in the line at the post office. It’s funny seeing people in line mad when I pop in, leave my packages with the cashier, and roll out! Some of the workers, actually know me by now and once in a while well say hey or “nice orders today”!

Print the postage!

Attach the shipping label, and send it away to another happy customer!

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into Discreetly Greek HQ!

Kitchen art

Kitchen art, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

Here is the art I created for our kitchen.
We got selected by the DIY network late this winter to totally remodel the kitchen. My girlfriend set it all up and then they came to interview us, and through a few emails we got selected.

At the end of it, we will have a $15,000 + kitchen to awe at!

We wanted a big bold piece of art to not only show our different styles. My girlfriend is more into a contemporary earthy kitchen, where I learn towards modern clean cut lines. The shows producer wanted to showcase my talent as digital artist on the show, and what better way to do it then with a 24″x36″ poster print.

Discreetly Greek – Fall ’10 line teaser

Discreetly Greek – Fall ’10 line teaser, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

New designs teasers for the Fall 2010 line!
It might seem far away but never too far way to show off some awesome art done by a great artist Cryface(link).

I will be posting more teasers like this from now on for the nalia line Discreetly Greek.
This nalia design is for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity inc. I wanted to put as much small details into this one as possible and Cryface knocked out the park. If you look closely the company name is spelled in the shoelace.

Check out the current line for Discreetly Greek and don’t forget to check out the Facebook fan page to see catch all the updates, promos, freebies and more!

Splitreason.com – Zombie is the new Red

Splitreason.com – Zombie is the new Red, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

The awesome guys at Split Reason sent me some shirts that I designed for them! They actually came out really nice. The one pictured above is a medium, so the print is pretty big and feels nice. Printed on Heather black.

Zombies have always been in and cool, but now in the last five years, zombie infections have literally spread across to the internet into normal daily life. Now at bars there are Zombie Crawls, and all kinds of ways to get dressed up and look for brraaaaiinns!

Go buy a few over at SplitReason – gear for geeks and gamers.

Belio 10 year Anniversary book

Belio 10 year anniversary book, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

I got published!

I was asked by the cool peeps over at BELIO to do some artwork for their 10 year Anniversary project. I was very excited and humbled to be asked to be part of a magazine and such amazing art.

The briefing from BELIO was to do any type of art in my style and just make sure to add their company name somwhere. So why not some severed fingers with blood spelling out Belio!

The book was huge, nicely done, and very excited what 2010 has in store for my art! YAY ME!

Standoutstickers.com promo

Standoutstickers.com promo, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

I got my stickers back from the great guys over at StandOutstickers.com

They came out great. The textures and the colors were spot on. Sometimes you always wonder if a printer can get the small details on textures, especially with real life, natural textures.

StandOut Stickers had a promo on one of my favorite t-shirt sites, Emptees. They posted a thread showing off their stickers and as most emptees posts, the members didn’t trust it and complained about pricing. I think the guys over at SOS decided to put their money where their stickers are and ran a promo for a set of 50 free stickers of any size, any cute and any image you want.

After a week the thread had over 500 posts, and hundreds of emptees members were noticing that these stickers are pretty awesome and worth the prices. They are very competitive and now that I have seen the samples and how they handled all the customer service, I know this is a company I will be using later for promotional materials.

Here are some examples of how I used the stickers as hang tags on my products for Discreetly Greek. I also put them in orders, and on the black poly mailers I use for shipping!

Here are some more photos of what they can do with some of their custom cutting machines! You want a foot shaped sticker, they will do it!

New submission to Threadless!

King Hippo, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

Hey I have sitting on this design for some time now, and I had no idea what to do with it. I started 2009 thinking I was going to do a gamer tee line, but after some research, I found that there are well established brands that have that niche locked up, and theres no way I could beat them, so this design sat dusty on my computer.

Today, I said screw it, I am going to re-work it and see what people thought. After a few crits and comments, the owner/founder of Threadless posted on the same thread and told me to sub it! He said will probably do well!

Here is the link

http://www.threadless.com/submission/250404/King_of_the_jun_Fridge

So after some arm twisting, I ended up subbing it, it should be available for voting soon.
Wish me luck, if it prints, I can win $2000! A lot better pay out if I would sold it. But if it doesn’t make it at Threadless, I will see maybe if 80stees.com, or Jinx clothing might want it.

WIP for Discreetly Greek

WIP for Discreetly Greek, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

Discreetly Greek WIP

For anyone that is not a computer nerd or designer, WIP means WORK IN PROGRESS!

Now that we got the details out the way, this a design I am currently working on for Discreetly Greek. I wanted to show more the behind the scenes stuff for people not in the industry, the tees jus’t don’t come out awesome automatically!

I can’t show the rest of the design until the release of the Spring line, but I wanted to give you something to chew on while you wait!

Don’t forget to check Discreetly Greek for the current Summer and Fall 09 lines. Most promos, discount codes,  and even freebies will be via my Twitter page or the facebook fan page, so feel free to join up so you can get all updates!

Smoke time!

Smoke time!, originally uploaded by Integral Apparel.

Well, It was time to show off my xmas presents, and the best way is to make you salivate! I got a smoker for xmas from my wonderful girlfriend, and I couldn’t help and wait, and set it up this weekend, grabbed some meat (that’s what she said) and got it rolling!

Here was my basic process:

• Hickory wood chips
• Apple juice for the drip dray and soaked the wood chips in it
• 8 lb brisket
• 9 lb pork shoulder
• Basic rub
• and 18 loooonnng hours of smoking!

It was fun and long process! I had to wake up every 3 hrs or so to change the wood chips so it didn’t have that harsh burnt flavor.
It is a learning process, but I have always been good at cooking and grilling so I thought this would have a learning curve, but nothing I am afraid of!
Enjoy the pics and if you have any tips and tricks on smoking, lets share em!
Have a safe Holidays!

Brisket – Check that smoke ring!

Pork Shoulder