Rhinestone/Bling T-Shirt Making Process
Custom rhinestone shirts from Broken Arrow is quite a different rhinestone process than that time your mom had to glue all those rhinestones to your dance costume by hand, or that time you bedazzled your jean jacket! Continue reading to learn how Broken Arrow makes amazing custom bling t-shirts, rhinestone tank tops and bedazzled shirts!
See our Rhinestone Making in Action
The best way to get a birds eye view into our rhinestone making process is to watch our rhinestone t-shirt making video. See the professional rhinestone machine in action from the placement of your rhinestones to the heat transferring. Watch our team peel off the transfer to reveal a beautiful rhinestone design created by our team. Read below for more detailed information about how we make your custom rhinestone t-shirt. If you have any questions about our process or rhinestones, let our team know. Don’t forget we can do multi colored rhinestones and we can add screen printing or embroidery to your bling shirt to create an awesome mixed media affect.
Rhinestone Design Ideas
1. We Convert Your Design to Bling
With custom rhinestone shirts and bling apparel, the rhinestone process starts with an awesome design! We can create your bling design from scratch or if you have a logo or design that you want us to turn into a bling t-shirt, we are happy to do that too- at no charge! Once we’ve got your design ideas, our professional rhinestone experts will take your design and “digitize it”. Digitizing is the process of telling the rhinestone machine where we want it to lay each rhinestone on the shirt or tank. We use different rhinestone sizes to create the best possible result for your design. Once we’ve got the digitizing done, we will send it over to you to review and approve. >From there, you can make any edits you want or approve it as is. Once your approval is received, we will move to the next step in creating your bling t-shirt or rhinestone apparel product.
2. The Rhinestone Transfer is Created
We want everything to be absolutely perfect, so this step is crucial! You’ve approved your bling design, so we know exactly what we can expect the professional rhinestone transfer machine to make. Next we need to prepare the machine to create your rhinestone transfer. The machine has hoppers which hold the rhinestones. Each hopper is filled with one rhinestone size in one color to ensure we get the color of stone and size of stone exactly where we want it. Once we’ve got it loaded, we turn the machine on and it gets to work. The machine rotates a little plate in each hopper until the rhinestone is facing the right direction (glue up!). Once that is done, the little arm will pick up the individual rhinestone and place it down on a sheet of paper known as the carrier sheet. Once all rhinestones are placed, the rhinestone t-shirt transfer is ready for the next step.
3. The Transfer is Quality Controlled
Once the custom bling t-shirt transfer is completed, we send it through a rigorous quality control review. Each the transfer will need to go through the same review process. Each rhinestone is inspected to ensure it has the proper placement and glue backing. Because the rhinestones are so light weight, it is easy for static to get into the machine and misplace the rhinestones a little bit. Even though we use the highest quality stones on the market, they still sometimes are missing their adhesive backing. Without this adhesive, the stone will fall off of the t-shirt, so our team makes sure that adhesive is there. Quality is a huge priority at Broken Arrow and this really important step must be done to ensure the longevity of your custom rhinestone t-shirt.
4. The Design is Professionally Heat Pressed
Your custom rhinestone design has been digitized, a transfer has been made and gone through its quality control process. The next step is to now finally create your bling shirt or tank. We warm up or professional great heat press machines so they are ready to go. We set your shirt on the heat press and set the transfer over top ensuring the adhesive is against the apparel item. Once everything is all straight and perfect, we heat process your design onto the garment. It is important to use professional grade items because high amounts of pressure and heat ensure permanent adherence to the garment. Once you wash your custom rhinestone t-shirt, you should see no lost stones!
5. Final Quality Control Review
After your bling t-shirts are pressed, it is on to our quality control department for a final review. We review each and every custom printed rhinestone t-shirt to make sure they look perfect! Our QC technicians will review the shirt or garment, the design, and the rhinestones and placement to make sure everything matches up to the online proof you approved, and also counts the order one more time. Once quality control has approved the order, it makes its way to our shipping department. Our shipping department will package and label the box for shipping, or for pickup at our Des Moines showroom - whichever option you chose. And soon enough, you will have some new, fantastic, custom rhinestone shirts!