Yes, a single sheet of aluminum, that, allegedly, I could print on with my main workhorse printer, an Epson SureColor P800 to produce metal prints. It came in an email marketing message from one of my main suppliers, BreathingColor. I have used their Lyve canvas exclusively for the past two years for all of my gallery wrapped canvas and flat canvas prints, it's the best there is and my customers deserve the best.

Well, then I found out that I would need a metal shear to trim the panels and a laminating machine to laminate the finished metal prints before I could sell them; two very large and expensive pieces of equipment that I neither have the room for, nor the budget.

Not being one to give up on anything easily (this helps tremendously when you have an Etsy shop) I started digging deeper into alternative methods of producing metal prints that would be feasible for me from both a budget and space allocation perspective.

Low and behold I discovered that Dye Sublimation printing would not only allow me to create the metal prints that I wanted for ThePreciousPast.etsy.com but it would also open the door to another whole universe of product possibilities, like what you're now seeing as the products in this shop, PersonalizedPassions.etsy.com

Yes, there are purists that will argue that the quality, clarity, and color gamut of dye sublimation prints doesn't compare to that of pigment based ink printing systems, but I'm not selling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I am creating products to be showcased on Etsy, so here we are.

The setup I have starts with an Epson Artisan 1430 which had to be equipped with sublimation inks for printing my images onto the various transfer papers that will be used to sublimate the image onto the product (aka substrate). These inks are horribly expensive, I still haven't quite figured that part out yet, but, I will.

After the images have been perfected in Photoshop and printed on the Epson 1430, it goes to my George Knight DC-16 Multi-Function Heat Press, which is truly the Cadillac of heat presses. I also opted for their mug press attachment and their steel stand which is on wheels so I can move it around my studio as the need arises.

See our complete catalog of items that can be personalized by visiting http://www.easycustoms.com/ then just send me a quick convo about what item(s) that interest you, and we'll take it from there.

Now that we have a finished product, it's time for the fun part, creating an attractive listing with clickable photography that will "get the click" and be purchased. That led to the whole mock up universe that exists in cyberspace, and Etsy is a great resource for some very affordable mock ups.

So there you have it, the journey of this shop so far. As you can see, I've started out with some of the simpler dye sublimation items such as mugs, mouse pads, and cuff bracelets. Once I have this shop up and running, I will then begin to produce metal prints in my other shop.

In closing, I think it's important to mention that I originally had all of these dye sublimated items in my fine art prints shop, and decided that it really was not the best fit for the target audience that I have developed there, so a new Etsy shop was born. I also was running out of categories quickly and that shop needs to be prints only.

This journey has only just begun and I look forward to the rewards of building a second Etsy shop. If you have any questions about any of the items I've mentioned here, just shoot me a quick convo, I'm always happy to share what I know.

Cheers!
Steve