OhLaso

So on the Ohlaso website (www.ohlaso.co.uk) we were using GoogleCheckout, the interface is much nicer than the Paypal interface and it can be configured (with some additional coding) for international shipping, which Paypal can't.  Anyhow, combined with feedback from my sisters site (stabo.co.uk if you're interested) it seems that people don't like googlecheckout, I guess they aren't that familiar with it, and if you haven't signed up to an account, then it is less convenient compared with paypal (assuming that everyone has a paypal account!).  Cutting to the chase, Ohlaso now use paypal as default... I don't like it, but that doesn't matter as the customer is always right... right?!

I've been pretty busy over the last few months, trying to finish off a doctorate, starting and new job and getting the website (and my sisters for that matter) all sorted our and tidied up.  So now it's up and running I just need to attract some customers, well Mrs H is actually in charge as I have a new job which is keeping me out of trouble!

If you fancy taking a look at it (or even buying something???!) you can find it at www.ohlaso.co.uk.  Feedback and comments would be welcomed.

Thanks

Oh Laso

Well the orders are trickling in and the new website should be operational before too long.  I'd been having a problem with bleeding inks.  I use water based inks from a supplier in the UK, being pretty new to the process I wasn't quite sure what was going wrong, I thought that the recent spell of hot weather may have meant that the inks were less viscous than before so I tried keeping them in the fridge, but to no avail, so what was it?  Well after some extensive googling I came to the conclusion, well Mrs H did, that we needed more base, which is obviously a little thicker.... and the result, yes, Mrs H. was right the thicker inks provided a much much better print.  I love it when a plan comes together!

The dodgy third screen which I had done a poor job of exposing the other week was re-exposed over the weekend.  Getting the emulsion on at a reasonable thickness certainly helped but I think that the yellow 75T mesh is a bit finer and probably needs slightly longer int eh exposure unit.  

Anyhow, that all went pretty smoothly, the challenge was to help my sister relocate her new clicker press.  The clicker press is used for cutting leather, particularly for 'stamping' out shapes.  Their old press had died so they got a new one, it weighs about a ton and isn't the most portable item.  The kind of stuff they do can be seen at www.stabo.co.uk, it's all good.

We spent the weekend making 3 new screens, the screens we made were designed to be a little bigger so that we could print some fabric in addition to t-shirt prints.  Being novices at this, and without the helpful advice of my brother in law (who is more of a expert in this), I applied a little bit too much emulsion.  Consequently while 2 of the screens were easily recovered, the third screen (which also had a finer mesh on it) didn't dry properly and suffered from both underexposure and washing off of the emulsion.  We can probably use some of it but it will need to re-do it at some point....

So hopefully I'll get some new images up in the next day or two.