Lumi: Linux Mint T-Shirt

First, I must truly thank Instructables and Lumi for this awesome chance to try out such a cool product! I can see way too many uses for it :)

I am generally not one for advertising companies for free (or rather paying THEM to advertise for them....see any Nike or A&F shirt) but when I find a product that truly gives back to the community, I have no problems letting others know about it. That being said, I decided to make a t-shirt to display my love for Linux in general and Linux Mint in particular. Same applies for using Gimp to create/edit the images.

Tools needed:

- Linux Mint OS (http://www.linuxmint.com/, free)
- Linux Mint Logo (see attached file)
- Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/, free)
- I've linked the Gimp XCF for this project as well.
- One Lumi Kit ( http://lumi.co/, free with promo event, $29.95 otherwise)
- T-shirt (or any other cloth surface really. I got 3 T-shirts for $3ea from http://english.11st.co.kr/html/en/main.html)
- Sunshine (outside, free)

So, behold my grand creation, the Linux Mint logo T-shirt, now with added attitude slogan!

Umm...err.....didn't quite work out as planned....ah well, such is life and donuts.  Next one will be better.

Gimp is pretty awesome and with the tons of tutorials online, doing anything becomes easy enough.

So first I Googed the Linux Mint logo, found one in decent size. Then imported it into Gimp, changed its colors to grayscale, and inverted. That's the easy part.

DropBox link to PNG: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n5xk4ggrv6ejw0m/Logo_Linux_Mint.png

Next I added some text. The problem with creating a negative is that you always have to keep in mind that anything you do will be inverted. This is mostly true but that doesn't mean creating white text on a white background will produce black text! Not that I know from experience or anything....

DropBox link to PNG: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q7fkvyzs7tiyhj7/Logo_Linux_Mint--no-bs-negative.png
DropBox link to XCF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0vni8tyq9xt9vv/Logo_Linux_Mint--no-bs-negative.xcf
DropBox link to PSD: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ldgzpf1sh9rhwh/Logo_Linux_Mint--no-bs-negative.psd

Ok, so now we have a simple negative to print. Sadly I don't have a printer at home but I do at my workshop. So I go there and test print....the printer has a problem. Well that sucks. Oh, and I forgot the t-shirts at home too, which is too far to just go and get. Sigh. Ok, so I go back home, and take the images to a printer to print for me. But wait, the white yet won't print out (err....experience....). Luckily I am closer to home. Back home I go to edit the image again. Now we have a proper image to print.......ohhhh, look at that, the printer guys have gone out for lunch. Ok, of to a nearby coffee shop and wait for 45mins.

Despite it being an overcast day, I did see the sun poking it's head out in bits and pieces.  I quick search on Lumi's website to verify that it's actually UV light that does the 'dyeing' process, I was ok with a cloudy day.  Yes, those warnings of 'sunscreen on cloudy days' do have weight to them.  The dye changed colour almost as fast as I was putting it on!  Lesson learned, prep your stuff INSIDE before heading outside if you want a clean difference.

So there it is, with the printed sheet over the t-shirt.  This was taken within 5mins of it being setup.  The colour changes pretty quickly when exposed.

Due to severe lack of space in my apartment, I don't have a printer.  So I took the sheets to a local printer and had to explain, with some difficulty, what I was trying to do.  This was a slight challenge because I live in South Korea and my Korean isn't quite up to par, let alone trying to explain any type of complex ideas.  Still, I got them to understand that I don't want the sheets to go through their expensive fax/copier/printer machine, just an ink-jet printer would do fine.

The guy thought the logo was too dark and lightened it up some.  I thought the end result would be fine but alas, it was still too dark.  Ah well, lesson learned.  Easily fixed for a second printing though.  Attached is a pic of the shirt after hand-washing twice in hot water.

Thanks again Instructables and Lumi!