Honey is our ingredient of the season this fall. If you can’t snag some Garage Top, head to the farmer’s market and make friends with a local beekeeper.

We’ve mentioned our brother and his delicious honey numerous times on the blog. In fact, last week he graced us with the shortest interview ever.
Sven is super generous when it comes to his honey. Passing out jars of the darkest, most delicious honey you’ve ever tasted. Needless to say, he’s generated quite a following. Other than photos of him and his hives on top of the garage, we didn’t have anything else that commemorates the honey we’ve come to love… until now.

Designing

We’ve made many personalized shirts and products in the past (you can see those posts here), so the general design and ordering process is pretty straightforward. These shirts presented a new challenge because I wanted to draw the design that would go on our shirts.

I used a few photos of the garage and hives as a guide for the sketch. Working first in pencil, then tracing the final design in black marker. Once I was happy with the design, I scanned it into the computer, and did a little bit of final cleaning up in Photoshop. I also used Photoshop to add the little sign with the words “Sven’s Garage Top Honey” above the garage doors.

As you can see in the design photo below. The lines aren’t perfect, and I’m sure there are many minor edits that you could do to improve this photo. BUT I always like to remind myself that “half done” is a style. HA! Only sort of joking. But really, I learned in high school art class, that perfection is hard to achieve, and if you go for effect, you’ll be a lot more content with your work. I wanted something that looked hand drawn (because it is) but that also was a good approximation of Sven’s Garage Top set-up. As you can see, once these wonky lines are printed on a shirt, the effect is awesome.

Ordering

I ordered these through Custom Ink. We’ve used this company in the past, and have always been happy with the results! This time I needed some assistance with a few aspects of the design, and was particularly pleased with how everything turned out.

The first issue we had was that we were ordering a wide range of sizes from youth XS to adult XXL. Custom Ink screen prints the designs on the shirt, so they have to make a custom screen for your design. As a result, the design will be printed the same size on all shirts. For us, that would have meant a smaller design (to fit the youth XS shirts), but it might look too small on the XXL shirts. BUT, for a small additional fee, they can create two design sizes for an order. We had them print the smaller design on the youth shirts and the larger design on all of the adults shirts.

The second issue was a minor one related specifically to the design. After you submit your order, you’ll receive proofs by email. Honestly, most times I place an order, trust that it will be done well, and don’t spend time reviewing everything (blame it on either laziness or #momlife). Fortunately, this time I opened the email, saw a small area of the proof that didn’t match with what I had in mind, and called Custom Ink right away. Their customer service is so awesome that someone answered my phone, was able to see the same issue that I saw, and fixed it ASAP before any more work was done on the order.

Last week, while visiting Sven’s Garage Top hives, we were able to surprise everyone with the shirts!