Keeping it Simple

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Colorful Layered Wooden Farm Sign- How to Cut on xTool S1 and Print DTF on xTool Apparel Printer

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Colorful Layered Wooden Farm Sign- How to Cut on xTool S1 and Print DTF on xTool Apparel Printer

If you are new to xTool and DTF printing, check out my beginner’s guide here. If you are new to laser cutters, check out this post all about the xTool S1.

A few years ago I made some wooden farm signs for my husband, for his office. They were a big hit and he has had them on his wall ever since. Recently  his job changed a little bit and he now has an additional office. It was looking a little bare, so I decided that I needed to make him some things for it. I love those farm signs so much that I wanted to make another one, for his new office. This time around, I really wanted the sign to pop and have some color in it. So I used my xTool apparel printer, found a pretty image of the farm and added that to the wooden layered sign. I love how the color on the wood pops and really makes the sign look amazing!

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DIY Personalized Photo Gifts with xTool Apparel Printer

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DIY Personalized Photo Gifts with xTool Apparel Printer

If you are new to xTool and DTF printing, check out my beginner’s guide here.

The ultimate way to personalized something is to put a picture onto it! Nothing screams personalization more than a homemade gift with a photo on it. When I got the xTool apparel printer I couldn’t wait to put pictures onto everything. I LOVE taking pictures, especially family pictures. We do family pictures every single year. I take a lot of pictures of my family and I rarely do anything with them.  But now that I have an apparel printer that prints out amazing, vibrant photos, I can make amazing photo gifts for me and for my family! I am going to be putting pictures on everything, and I mean everything! We took these family pictures in the summer of 2025 and I have not printed out a single one. With the xTool apparel printer, printing out pictures is super easy, all you have to do is upload them and then push print, it really is that easy! You can put the photos on a variety of materials, I decided to use a 8 x 10 canvas, a can cozy and a mouse pad. The DTF photo transferred perfectly on each different kind of material.

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Beginner’s Guide to xTool Apparel Printer- How to Set it Up and Use It

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Beginner’s Guide to xTool Apparel Printer- How to Set it Up and Use It

This post is a sponsored post.  I was given the xTool apparel printer to review.  All opinions, ideas and content are 100% my own.

I have been making shirts for several years now and I cannot tell you how excited I am about this xTool Apparel Printer. I have been using xTool machines for longer than 3 years and I have been so impressed with all them. xTool has created some of the most top of the line machines on the market, with many different functions. I am in awe of all of the different kinds of machines that they have and the apparel printer hasn’t been any different, I am in awe of it! It is amazing! I have played around with it and it has blown my mind. I cannot wait to design and create with it! What is the xTool apparel printer? It is a printer that prints on direct-to-film (DTF). DTF can then be transferred to shirts, wood, metal and much more! The possibilities are endless with this machine!

If you’ve been thinking about starting a custom T-shirt business or creating your own apparel at home, the xTool Apparel Printer is an exciting place to begin. This is also a great gift idea for your crafty friends and family!

While direct-to-film (DTF) printing can seem intimidating at first, the process is much easier than you might expect.  In this beginner’s guide and tutorial, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know—from setting up your printer to creating your first professional-quality print.

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Budget Friendly Renovation Ideas- Before and After Pictures

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Budget Friendly Renovation Ideas- Before and After Pictures

Over the summer, my husband and I purchased a second house for our two sons that are going to college. We decided that instead of spending thousands of dollars on rent, we could put that money into another house. We found a house that was in our price range, had enough bedrooms and bathrooms to house our sons and a couple of their friends. We found a duplex that was built in 2006 and clearly has not had any work done it since then. It was definitely a fixer upper and in pretty bad shape when we bought it. The before pictures don’t make it look as bad as it was because the previous owners had a few cats that destroyed so much of the flooring and made the whole house have a funky smell. Plus, the whole house hadn’t been deep cleaned for a very long time. Luckily, my husband and I aren’t afraid of hard work and immediately got to work to make the house brighter and more livable.

Since we had just purchased the house this summer, we didn’t have a ton of money to put into the house. We had to come up with budget friendly renovation ideas that wouldn’t break the bank and gave us the biggest bang for our buck. Another issue that we had was that we live 14 hours away from this house, so we had to come up with ideas that we could do over a few weekends over the summer, so we couldn’t do any kind of major renovations. We had to just stick with the cosmetic renovations, which can have a huge impact.  Another problem we had to figure out was picking out colors and materials from 14 hours away. I couldn’t just go to the store and then see how it would like in the house. I had to make decisions from 14 hours away, because the time we had at the house was limited and I had to have the supplies shipped to the house.  So when we got there, we could put all of our time into doing the renovations. I happy to say that after a CRAZY summer and traveling thousands of miles and hours, we have gotten the house looking so much better. We aren’t completely done with it, we did as much as we could within a summer. I plan on replacing all of the disgusting flooring and carpet in the whole house, but that will have to wait until next summer. I am thrilled by how much better the house looks!

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