CHAMPIONS, TROPHIES,
T-SHIRTS & MORE

Christie Shrum is the classic entrepreneurial story, starting from nothing and building a real business, showing all of us that you can start from scratch and make it doing what you LOVE!

How did you get started in Apparel Decorating?

I was a full time Mom for 21 years, did dispatch for a trucking company and waited tables. Then a friend offered me a screen printing set up and a little business that came with it and I jumped in!

What technologies do you use?

We do just about everything. Rhinestone machine transfers and t-shirts with our CAMS 1V-6P and embroidery with our 1501-C from ColDesi, screen printing, awards and trophies. We want to be a one-stop shop for our local market.

We bought the 1V-6P because rhinestones are huge in Texas and we didn’t want to start out small. The hoppers on the CAMs model we bought lets us do just about EVERYTHING anyone can think of in rhinestones.

What kind of equipment did you purchase and why?

We bought the 1V-6P because rhinestones are huge in Texas and we didn’t want to start out small. The hoppers on the CAMs model we bought lets us do just about EVERYTHING anyone can think of in rhinestones.

How do you decide what Markets to go after?

Because we decided on a brick and mortar store – actual display and retail space – we are focusing on our local market. We’ve got 5 schools within a short distance of our shop and they are our primary target market. But we have also gotten lots of other local sports teams on board, like Volleyball and Little League. The combination of having trophies, awards, embroidery AND spirit wear is a big plus.

How’s Business so far?

We’ve been busy little beavers around here! Not long before we actually opened the doors for public business, we acquired the account for the volleyball little league uniforms.  Of course the parents wanted spirit shirts for those teams! (YAY!) And then of course, they came back for trophies! Directly after volleyball, basketball season started. We did the trophies for that league as well! Baseball season has been a blessing! We did banners, team spirit shirts, hat embroidery with our SWF embroidery machine, and we just recently learned that we earned the trophy account for our local little league. This was a MUCH bigger deal.  There are almost 600 children signed up in this league!

We are currently bidding on the All-Stars uniforms for our local league now.  If we get that account, the spirit shirts orders will come pouring in as well. WE LOVE BASEBALL SEASON! 🙂 We are also putting in bids at different school districts near us to be able to do all of their spirit shirts and so forth as well. We know that the income is not the greatest with school districts, but the advertisement is what we are looking for.

Other than the Little Leagues, we have done many other types of work as well. We have had cook-off BBQ teams order koozies and t-shirts for their teams, the local Chamber of Commerce orders their trophies and volunteer shirts from us, we’ve done some local restaurant’s uniform shirts and many of the student organizations come here for their special events shirts. I could go on for a while about the small accounts that we have furnished t-shirts, hats, promotional items, and trophies for. We are so VERY excited that our business is taking off as well as it is.

I tell everyone that lives in our area that we WANT to be our town’s local trophy and spirit gear shop for a VERY LONG TIME!! We are enjoying ourselves EXTREMELY!! Watching the kids get trophies that we have made for them is incredible, seeing the kids look over our shirts for their name and number is OUTSTANDING!!

VERY VERY GRATIFYING BUSINESS!

Thank you again for taking the time to let me ramble on about how much fun we are having with our newfound love!!!  I couldn’t be happier that we found a business that is this much fun!