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Let's be honest, winter in Fayetteville be pretty cold and dreary so it's not like we needed much of an excuse to hit up the west coast, but this just happened to work out for us! Nine members of our team headed out to sunny California in January to attend the annual Imprinted Sportswear Show (ISS) in Long Beach. It’s kind of like the World Fair of the garment printing industry...picture an indoor convention center the size of several football fields filled with all of the latest innovations in equipment, ink, and apparel. Oh, and people - lots and lots of people from around the globe were also there. We get it, probably sounds kind of nerdy of us to geek out about apparel and inks, but we're always trying to stay on top of apparel trends and continuing our printing expertise so that you guys know you're getting nothing short of the best. We attend this event every year to explore new industry ideas and meet with our partners and vendors. It’s how we stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest products, processes, and presses that help us design and deliver awesome apparel to you. This year, we invested in another 12-head press, explored new apparel partnership opportunities, and set up some strategic meetings to start planning our 2019 Origins Academy. (Haven’t heard of Origins? Check it out HERE!) We also managed to have a pretty good time...but we always to do that! Evidence can be found in the photos below.

We've officially kicked off this year's print parties! What started as simply a dream for us, that is, getting to host our community in our HQ turned into a reality over the past couple of years. During the remodel of our space we kept hosting in mind, and it has turned out to be the absolute best! Each school semester we are fortunate enough to host several sororities from the University of Arkansas to print their own tees! Usually these are for sisterhood events or new members. Last night we hosted U of A AXO - they're always so fun to have in the place we call home! Check out some photos from our event HERE.   Feel free to use any of the photos, but please tag @bunlimited.

We get it! Between family activities, Christmas parties, and gift shopping the holiday season is easily the busiest time of the year. It's hard to make it to every store to check off each person on your list. We've put together a little gift guide with some of our Natural Threads products to help lift your load just a bit! Here's your new list, made easy: For your grandma, we think she'll love the Arkansas Outline Sweatshirt. Perfectly cozy and she can support every team with only one sweatshirt! Shop this sweatshirt here. For your grandpa, we've picked out a couple options! Either our Good Game Sweatshirt paying homage to the Arkansas basketball team or the Spirit of the Buffalo tee. Shop the sweatshirt here, and the tee here. For your dad! Let's be honest, dads can be hard to shop for. The Arkansas Dad Hat or our Cedar Falls tee will definitely leave him asking where he can buy more this Christmas. Shop the hat here, and the tee here. For your mom, who definitely deserves a great gift, we suggest both the Wooo Pig embroidered tee she can dress up or down and the Hogs Club sweatshirt is perfect for when she needs some cozy couch time! Shop the tee here, and the sweatshirt here. For your brother, who probably already has everything or just doesn't respond when you text him and ask what he wants... our Vintage A Hat and Arkansas USA sweatshirt will definitely have him saying a few extra "Thank You's" at the dinner table. Shop the hat here, and the sweatshirt here. For your sister, whether she's older or younger she'll love the Stacked WPS Tee or the Arkansas Corded Sweatshirt in retro red. Shop the tee here, and the sweatshirt here. Bonus List:Trendy BFF - Cropped Arkansas Hoodie or ARK HenleyThe Hog Fan -  Good Game SweatshirtLoyal Local - Fayetteville Hometown Crew or Fayetteville Distressed Tee   The Recap: Grandma: Arkansas outline sweatshirt Grandpa: Good Game Sweatshirt or Spirit of the Buffalo Dad: Arkansas Dad Hat/Cedar Falls Tee Mom: WoooPig embroider tee/ Hogs Club Sweatshirt Brother: Ebbetts field A hat/ Arkansas USA Sweatshirt Sister: Stacked WPS or Arkansas Corded Crew Retro Red   Happy Holidays!

  We get it... figuring out where to start when it comes to ordering custom apparel can be A+ overwhelming. Hopefully this blog post can help you narrow down some options for garments and colors. You can find us online shopping all day, every day looking for the latest and greatest products and designs to bring to you guys! We can quite honestly do it all: stickers, tees, water bottles, socks, sweatshirts, and hats to name just a few. Greek organizations across the country rely on us to make sure their chapter has the best apparel. We always want you to feel like you’re working with a local company, even if you’re 500 miles away. ALL THINGS SHIRTS At B-Unlimited, we're pretty much all about t-shirts. It can be a little intimidating trying to figure out what it all means, but we’ve got a guide for you! We’re talking terms, colors, and t-shirt hacks. T-SHIRT TERMS SS - short sleeve LS - long sleeve CC - Comfort Colors PR - a simple tee that reflects your organization (AKA not event specific) Bella - Bella & Canvas soft shirt  COMFORT COLORS GUIDE Here’s a guide for comfort colors shirts. Using this guide here is the breakdown of different colors and the different official Comfort Colors names for each shirt. These are just some of our favorites, but always feel free to let us know what color you’re looking for when working with one of our Account Managers.  The Greys: Granite, Grey, Charcoal The Blues: light blues - Chambray, Ice blue, Periwinkle, Island Reef, Mystic Blue; darker blues - Denim, Blue Jean, Denim, China Blue and Midnight The Greens: Aloe, Celery, Kiwi, Celadon, Island Green, Lime, and Blue Spruce The Purples: Violet, Wine, and Purple The Reds: Crimson, Brick, Red, Paprika, Chili Pepper, and Cumin BELLA + CANVAS GUIDE The way we screen print allows Bella tees to be an amazing option! Our super soft and breathable prints matched with the softest-ever tri blend tee will raise your bar. We’ll throw a few of our favorites below to save you some work of sifting through all the colors, trust me, there’s a lot. White Fleck Triblend, Oatmeal Triblend, Grey Triblend, Denim Triblend, Mauve Triblend, Blue Triblend What about sweatshirts? We know it’s not always about t-shirts, and especially as the weather cools off we wanted to give you our must have sweatshirts too! Check out the sweatshirt guide below.  

One of the most fun and rewarding positions in your chapter is being the t-shirt chairman. Take it from me, I not only work for B-Unlimited but I’m also a t-shirt chair for my sorority! Making shirts for your sorority or fraternity means seeing your designs worn by people all over campus – I mean, let’s be honest, that’s pretty sweet! As you are gearing up for the rest of the semester use these tips and tricks to keep you on top of your game: First off, contact B-Unlimited to design shirts for your chapter. Email orders@b-unlimited.com to get started! Send a survey to your chapter asking what kind of shirts and designs your members like. Ask for their preference on t-shirt brands, kinds of sweatshirts, and shirt colors too! Start the semester off with two or three fun PR shirts and begin planning buttons and stickers for football game days. (New members LOVE anything with their new letters on it – you remember those days!) Make t-shirts for initiation, sisterhood events, philanthropy dinners, homecoming, and events in between as you want. Stay organized by making a list of events early in the semester and know which events need shirts. For dad’s day events, make a t-shirt for girls, a polo for dads, and a baseball cap or cups with the football schedule! Trust me, your dad might pretend he doesn’t want to wear your letters, but he’s all about it. Put shirts online before functions, philanthropy dinners, and other events and keep them up a week after to allow people to continue buying after the function or event. As fall rolls around design PR long sleeve henley’s, sweatshirts, and long sleeve t-shirts that are sure to be a hit with your chapter. Tell your chapter the deadlines to order shirts and when t-shirt pass outs will happen. At B-Unlimited we’ll even send you text updates to remind you about when the shirt is coming offline. Just ask your account manager how to sign up! Keep a folder on your computer of designs you like and look for inspiration around you! Design shirts with significant things relevant to your chapter and university. Look at other shirts and think of things you would change and do it differently. Reference B-Unlimited’s Pinterest account and B-Unlimited artwork gallery on our website for shirt designs! It’s all about inpso, and we are not short of that around here. Seriously, drop us a line at orders@b-unlimited.com. We’d love to help you get started! As t-shirt chairman, I have found my chapter is happy with designs that are a mix of fresh new ideas as well as sometimes bringing back the classics. Talk with your friends and ask what people are liking and want to see! - T-Shirt Chair Insider

  Many people don’t know, but there is more than one type of screen printing method! If you’re a details person, you should totally read below about why we try to use discharge water-base over plastisol when we print your shirts. If you’re more of a visual person scroll down to watch a video we put together showing how printing with water-base ink can be the best decision for you and your organization. What is plastisol? If you’ve ever worn a printed T-shirt when you’re running or working out and the big print on your shirt sticks to you like a back-sweat magnet, chances are, that is a shirt printed with plastisol ink. The way plastisol ink is printed, it is laid down on the top of the garment almost like icing on a cake. You can definitely feel that it’s there and sometimes so much so that it feels similar to that of sand paper because it’s such a thick ink. After many washes this type of print can crack and even end up peeling off of the shirt. A positive trait of plastisol ink though, is it can print on anything & can give you more accurate color results. At B-Unlimited we print with plastisol when absolutely necessary. An example of this would be if a company contacted us to print a logo on their shirt and it was important that colors were a match for their branding! What is discharge water-base? This type of printing really depends on the material of the garment! It prints really bright and clean on 100% cotton garments. It can give fun and faded looks on tri blends and 50/50 garments, but unfortunately won’t print on polyester garments. With discharge printing the ink is printed into the fabric and actually replaces the pigment in the fabric of the garment with the pigment of the ink, thus actually becoming a part of the shirt for as long as the life of the shirt. It’s actually pretty magical. As this ink is laid into the shirt and cured through the dryer you won’t even feel that there’s a print on this garment. It’s just as soft as the original product the ink goes on and gets better with every wash. So what does that mean for you? We’ve got a short video at the bottom of our blog post here giving you an illustration on the breathability difference between plastisol and discharge water-base. The plastisol holds in all water and moisture, but the water-based discharge print allows the water to flow through very easily. An example would to be to imagine yourself walking across campus on a hot day and feeling shirt sticking to you, and not having breathability – this would be a plastisol printed t-shirt. At B-Unlimited we print with lots of different kinds of ink. But we specialize in soft, environmentally friendly water-based discharge ink. Ask your Account Manager for your next design to be printed with the softest ink we have and see the difference for yourself. Water-Base vs Plastisol Breathability & Water Test from B-Unlimited on Vimeo.  

It’s no surprise that our schedule is influenced greatly by that of an academic calendar due to the amount of universities we work with nationwide! We use our summer season to strengthen all facets of who we are. From team culture to production systems, we take a lot of deep breaths preparing for undoubtedly our busiest time of the year, fall! With that in mind, we are over the moon about all that’s going on at B-Unlimited this summer! (Don’t worry. We plan to keep you in the loop - always.) July 10th – 12th we will be hosting a conference, Origins - A Journey in Water-Based Screen Printing, alongside some of the best partners in the screen printing market. At first glance water-base screen printing sounds new and revolutionary, but in reality it’s where screen printing all started. Along the way new methods emerged, but only leading to harmful effects and diminishing quality. We arrived at the name Origins for our conference to dive in and get back to where screen printing all started, water-base screen printing. This will hopefully be the first of many events like this for us! We believe every person has a responsibility to uphold as we occupy this planet and consume it’s resources. With the apparel industry being one of the largest contributors to our Earth’s pollution issue, we feel that a step in the respectable direction is to print with water-based ink to reduce the use of harsh chemicals and the need for more petroleum-based products. This responsibility lead us to investigate the world of water-based printing.  So, back to Origins! That’s the academy we’re hosting this summer… just in case you’ve forgotten. Alongside our sponsors: MagnaColours, Graphic Solutions, Kiwo Coatings, M&R Print Company, and Newman Roller Frames we will be educating companies from all over about a future printing with water-based inks. When it comes to screen printing, there are two major options: water-based and plastisol (PVC). Plastisol screen printing is a type of screen printing in which a layer of ink is printed on top of a garment. This method lacks breathability and will eventually lead to cracking and peeling. Unfortunately, we all have that one shirt that we love that we can no longer wear because the design has begun to peel off.  Alongside these effects, plastisol screen printing has an unfortunate effect on the environment and the user. The clean-up process of plastisol ink releases fumes that have a negative impact on the environment and production employees. On the back end, the disposal of excess ink and waste of all petroleum-based products can cause harm to the environment. Good news - there’s another option, and that’s why we are hosting Origins! It has taken us many years of investment, but we are proud to say that we are close to 100% transitioned to water-based screen printing. We have to admit, it has not been an easy journey. For this reason, we want to bring other companies alongside us so that we can pass along all that we’ve learned about water-based screen printing. Investing in the future of our environment and the success of other screen printing operations is important to us. By lifting others through education, we believe that Origins Academy will be a great success.Registration and purchase of tickets can be found at b-unlimited.com/origins. Early registration pricing ends on June 1st. If you have any questions about us, or our journey drop us a line at hello@b-unlimited.com.

For those who don’t attend the University of Arkansas or aren’t familiar, Row is a spring event that takes place each year on campus! Every fraternity participates by having a date night, function night, and everyone’s favorite part is Saturday, which includes a large concert series - music festival style.Maybe reading is your thing! Maybe it’s not?If you’re just here for photos, CLICK HERE! THE FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW! (IF YOU ONLY READ ONE, SKIP TO NUMBER 3) 1. We’ll get this one out of the way - it was cold, like really cold. Was it fun anyway? No doubt, but let’s aim for a warm sunny day next year!2. Every year B-Unlimited partners with fraternities across campus to make sure merch is taken care of. From custom, hand-drawn t-shirts to wrist bands and all things in between we make sure everything is looking top notch. 3. This year every fraternity in the IFC came together and used this event to raise money for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Arkansas! A group of guys coming together this year doing an event they do year after year, BUT THIS TIME RAISING OVER $4,000! Let’s give that a solid round of applause!4. We had a few people from our team on location at the fair grounds where Phi Delta Theta, Kappa Sigma, Sigma Chi, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon did their concert.  If you were there, or maybe if you weren’t, look for your friends! Our photos are HERE!5. Is your organization looking for a company like ours to make sure your event has the best shirts, banners, hats, etc? Seriously, drop us a line - we’d love to chat! (hello@b-unlimited.com) Feel free to download and use the photos! Please tag @bunlimitedfayetteville on Instagram!All photos are property of B-Unlimited and Kaytie Menz Photography

Saying YES to Color: On the radar this Spring! All the bright colors - we're talking bold pops of yellow, red, blue. This year we've seen a HUGE request for custom simple PR tees! On both super soft tees and your classic Comfort Colors. (Inspo below) Our FIVE rules to live by this Spring: Say yes to bold colors - you won't regret it.  Embrace athleisure.... it's not going anywhere!  White Comfort Colors tees are our latest obsession. Throwback designs are in AND will carry you through to the fall semester. (TBH a perfect gift to pass down to your little) Lastly - take time for yourself! We seriously live and die by the rule 'Work Hark, Play Hard' - we think you should too. It'll make you appreciate both your productive time, and your #selfcare time too! Our two favorite times of the year are for sure the Spring and the Fall! So many fun events: Mom's Day, Spring Break, Formals, Recruitment, Rush, Football Season, and Christmas... just to name a few. Basically, all great reasons to order custom sorority and fraternity t-shirts for your chapter! Our Inspo this Spring: Be sure to always check out our rotating greek collection online at 76Collection - it's all the goods and designs we love based on what's popular and in season.   Have any ideas you're itching for us to blog about? Seriously - shoot us an email and we'd love to tackle it! -The B Team