About a month ago I alluded to a surprise that we would be sharing soon….Something that we have been praying about and scheming toward for months…..Something that is going to allow us to bless more adoptive families using the skills and knowledge that God has given us.
Well, here it is!
Surprise! We are now the owners of a six-color, professional-grade screen printing press, as well as all of the other equipment that goes with it. We are officially professional screen printers!
You see, Daniel did screen printing for several years in high school. He loves the process, and he has always wanted to do more of it. We have spent the last month working with the press and getting our ducks in a row to open our new little business. Now we are ready to go.
So here is our goal: We want to print shirts (or tote bags or whatever) for adoptive families and/or ministries who want to hold T-shirt fundraisers. We will offer the best deal that we possibly can, making little or no profit ourselves, so that they can SAVE and make more money on the sale of the shirts!
We plan to continue to sell Go. Seek. Love. shirts just as we have been, giving 100% of the profits to an adoptive family and assigning each family one month to sell the shirts on their blog, etc. We have been able to give almost $4,500 in profits to other adoptive families since we started doing this. That is in addition to the $2,000 we earned for our own adoption selling the shirts. We really enjoy doing it – Daniel and I have had lots of great conversations while printing T-shirts, by hand, late at night. However, now we are able to print them using our screen printing press, and a batch of shirts can be processed in one evening instead of it taking an entire weekend to get them ready to ship.
It has been extremely rewarding to bless other adoptive families, asking nothing from them in return, the same way that we were blessed by so many when we were raising funds for our adoption. It makes us want to do more, and that is why we are so excited about this screen printing press. We hope to be able to help tens, possibly a hundred, adoptive families and non-profits to raise money with this gift that we have been given.
We had dreamed of being able to do this for a long time, but screen printing equipment is expensive! Plus we had nowhere to put it in our house – no garage or basement or bonus room. The equipment is big! It didn’t seem like something that was going to happen anytime soon. Then along came the Great Flood of 2010. The water never touched our house (read my post about how God’s hand was on us), but our large-ish shed in our backyard was flooded. Since then we have been forced to empty the space, find new homes for the things that used to be stored there, and replace the rotting floor. And that is how we found the space to open up our new screen printing studio!
Daniel watched Craig’s List for months to find the right deal. We prayed that if this is what God wanted us to do, then he would show us how to do it cheaply. Finally he found a bargain in Asheville, NC, and off we went on a fun weekend trip to pick up our new equipment.
So now we are ready to go! All we are waiting on is your orders. If you have been considering holding a T-shirt fundraiser, please contact us. We want to help you! We can’t wait! We will give you a quote, help you pick out your T-shirts, and help you figure out how many you need to order. (We’ve been selling shirts long enough to have an idea of what sells, what sizes you need, etc.)
Please email us at dubois@goseeklove.com
And by the way, to help us to pay for the equipment we are also wanting to do some commercial work as well. We would love to pick up some small to medium size printing jobs. If your church group, sports team, or office needs T-shirts, please, please give us a shout. Do us a favor and pass the word along to your youth group leaders and little league coaches. We have a website set up for the commercial side of the business with detailed info about pricing. Check it out! www.bluebirdscreenprinting.com
T-shirts are shipping out tomorrow morning! To those who have been waiting a long time to receive your order, we apologize. The new ladies burn out shirt has been back ordered. Evidently it is a popular shirt, but we hope that this will not be a problem in the future. 
