New project: Screen printing t-shirts for Cosplay Club.
Note: Before looking back and thinking I had no life, please remember that at this point, future self, I was driving down I-10 in the Mississippi pan handle about 15 minutes from Alabama on my way home from Thanksgiving holidays in NoLa. Remember that? You couldn't fully enjoy your last day cuz your siblings kept teasing you and then that terrifying WWII 4-D movie just ended your sanity? Yeah.

Ok, this one has confusion, a lot of me being stupid, and even a little drama behind it, and from its name, doesn't sound like me doing much else other than coordinating, which isn't the kind of thing I put here.  Allow me to explain in a "brief" time line:

1. The cosplay presidents and I map out a design for a club t-shirt. I throw it together in photoshop.

2. I go to the Skills USA sponsor, Mr. C, who happens to be the graphic arts teacher. He's also my teacher for the first time this year, but I had interacted with him extensively over the big screw up that resulted in the epic robotics team t-shirts for the 2009 peachtree regional. I ask him if he can do the shirts for Cosplay club, still a little nervous over the whole robotics thing (dude's pretty intimidating for a 5-foot-nothing skinny bald jewish kid from new yawk), but since the project board is mostly empty at the beginning of the year, I figure I'm good.

3. We present the design to the club, who are pretty down with the idea. We then take an estimate of the number of shirts we'll need. About 11 non-officers showed up to this meeting, and so we put the estimate at 20 shirts, leaving us some extra shirts. Only like 3 or 4 people had paid dues at this point, but we figured once the shirts showed up, they'd be a good incentive (no shirt till you pay, etc.) BAD IDEA.

4. I go to Mr. C with our order and the design. He files it away, and gives me an estimate of about $200. Um, ouch. I don't remember how we got there, since I seem to recall his standard 3-screen rate was about $6 a shirt... Whatever, I could be wrong, my memory sucks. Anyway, I told the presidents, and they were like, "ok cool we'll get him the money."

5. A couple weeks (might have even been a month or two) later, I begin to wonder why our shirts, which I put on his project board myself, hadn't been marked as started. Concerned, I asked him. He said that he never recieved the money. Of course, I'm the treasurer (The club is more like, here are the presidents they do stuff. Katt wanted to do tshirts so that's her job i guess."), so I'm freaking the fuck out. I run to Sara, one of the presidents, and ask her if she ever paid. She says she thought Jessica, the other president, did. I know this is not going anywhere good, but I find Jessica and ask her if she paid. She says she's not sure, but she seems to remember paying. Panicked, I go back to Mr. c (this is all happening over a series of lunch periods), and ask to see his receipt book. He lets me, but there's no record of Jessica ever paying. Um. I go back to Sara and Jessica, who are together this time. They're perplexed, since they recall that when they went to withdraw the money for the club sewing machines, they just managed to scrape out enough money for the purchase. It seemed that about $200 had been removed... for something. So, one lunch period, we go to the Cosplay Club sponsor, and ask her about it. She says she submitted no such request for money out of our club account. Shit shit shit. We've still got time before the lines start to go down (when you have 5th lunch, there's like a ten-minute window that is the perfect time to get lunch: after the lines have gone down, and before the lines close for the day. After the lines close, we still got a good half hour to eat), so we do an about-face and run to Mr. C. He says he never requested any money either. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. So $200 is missing. Great. Ah, now that I think about it, the records room that keeps club accounts probably has a log of all the transfers. Duh. >_< I'll put that on my to do list for Monday. ANYWAY!

6. Here's where the project comes in. Time has passed. No one really cares about the shirts anymore, but I still have to sit right under that project board every day in Graphic Arts. :( So graphic arts class got around to its big screen printing unit about two weeks ago. I worked hard on my shirt, and was happy with the result. I loved the whole process (as soon as I was off the computer. That part's annoying sometimes), and as I prepared to do my final print on my actual shirt, I had a brilliant idea, but I'd need a lot confidence to pull it off.

7. I approach Mr. C after class one day (since we both have lunch right after), and I propose to him an idea. Trying not to stammer, I ask how much it would cost me to rent equipment, ink, and emulsion if I were to purchase T-shirts at Michael's and, outside of class time (meaning lunch/after school/wEB), screen print the Cosplay Club t-shirts myself? They're about a three-screen job, but with just black ink and a little bit of white. He looks contemplative for a bit, then tells me if I am willing to do all the work and line it up myself and not use class time for it, it'll cost me about a dollar a shirt.

WOAH WOAH WOAH. A dollar each!? Excellent! I had to double check several times. He probably thought I was mentally impared. Beaming, I leave the classroom after thanking him profusely, and report my success to the presidents at lunch. They're absolutely ecstatic about it, too. We decide then to send out an email saying due-payers don't have to worry, and if you haven't paid dues yet, you can still get a t-shirt dirt cheap! They'll just have to pay $30 to join the MomoCon cosplay group in addition to the t-shirt charge. Ah... I just realized... we should have put in a profit margin... crap. Whatever. I'll just jack up the price on Wednesday.

Anyway, I'm super excited about this project! It's going to be difficult because I've only done a one screen job before, and that thin ipod cord is going to be REALLY hard to line up. I should probably look into doing that using that paint roller method I talked about in my intro post. Just have a stencil of the ipod cord, since it can be lined up more easily than a screen, and roll it straight over the black ink. Maybe... >_<

Thomas (a girl who wanted to be called Serenity before, but her real name's Alisha), who is the Secretary and who helps to organize tutorials, and Jessica say that they're going to help me. They've both taken Graphic Arts years one and two, and Thomas made a two-color shirt awhile back that was lined up really well. I'm hyped!