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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲

@freshhotflavors.bsky.social

650 followers 200 following 320 posts

A small TX based artist-run apparel & accessories studio! Email us: freshhotflavors(at)gmail ! 🌈 https://www.freshhotflavors.com 🌈

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · May 6

may drop is now LIVE on the site 💐

a triptych of 3 people wearing our tops for the drop

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · 4d

Zyn's gonna be at Lone Star Zine Fest in Austin THIS WEEKEND right near the front~

There's limited stock of block print tanks, zine kits & zine fiend patches, for both Saturday the 11th & Sunday the 12th!
[Blue Genie, 6100 Airport Blvd 12-6PM, a free-to-attend event] #LSZF2025

a map to Xenon's table at Lone Star Zine Fest. it has an arrow leading up-right-up to table #44

a spread of the tools and items that are in a travel zine kit that's stamped with a 'zine fiend' emblem

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · 16d

two of us will be out and about this weekend!!! come visit if you're in the north dallas area :>

Come visit Cheesy at: Monster Hunter Theme Drink Art Market, Rainbow Teashop Plano TX Sept 27-28

Zyn will be at: Denton Zine and Art Party; Sunday September 28, 2-6PM at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios 411 Sycamore Street

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Sep 1

seconding this, my roomie has one that i've gotten to use, & it works great! for even cheaper ink, at least on my smaller canon pixma, i refill w/syringes and bulk ink from cisinks.com - wayyy cheaper, and less cartridge waste, in exchange for a bit of effort and mess (wear gloves lol) -zyn

Reposted by 🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲

DREW WISE @drewwise.bsky.social · Aug 3

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Grumpy Gryphon - Yip Yap Crew @grumpygryphon.bsky.social · Jul 19

So, debating doing a trial run with a new pin manufacturer to test the screen printing and I'm considering making this sad, SAD little kobold...

A sketch of a scared looking kobold, tears running down their face, as they hold out a tiny dagger. Above their head is a little banner that reads level 1

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Reposted by 🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲

Alien in a jar @alieninajar.com · Jul 19

👁------👁

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Gwen!!! @poodlewool.bsky.social · Jul 15

Pigeons, apricots, and thyme!

Because it's always thyme for pigeons! :)
A repeating pattern of peaceful floating pigeons interspersed with clusters of apricots, small white flowers, and sprigs of thyme. It's primarily a dusty teal color.

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 16

progresssss. gosh I really like the blue stain, it helps so much finding the spots I need to get to!

a partially carved block of bold lined lilies and sparkles

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 8

3 hours of carving 😀👍 (😭)

a design of 4 concentric rings of stippled shoujo bubbles on a rubber carving block. the outer ring and inner splotch are carved, but the rest remains uncarved

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 7

block designs: transferred and ready 2 carve ✌️

me: man I'm glad I don't carve the raptor design. so many lil bones!

also me: but what if I hand carved stippled shoujo bubbles,,

three large rubber blocks with sharpie and graphite outlines of manga style lilies, sparkles, and a graduated set of shoujo bubbles made of clusters of dots

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 7

you can go read the post on tumblr here and clicky the links and such. i wanna clean this up and make a blog post on it at some point too, with pichurs and such
www.tumblr.com/freshhotflav...

Reblog by @freshhotflavors · 1 image

💬 1 🔁 47 ❤️ 84 · @dogs-in-a-trenchcoat congrats, your curiosity has unlocked the unskippable cutscene of the block printing knowledge i accumulated so far! :D block printing on fabric is very e…

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 7

someone on tumblr expressed interest in knowing a bit about the types of materials i use for block printing, so here's the infodump!

tags from dogs-in-a-trenchcoat: #It never occured to me you could just.. Stamp a shirt? Always assumed you had to have a screen printing set up or something #I'd love to see a post about like the types of materials yall use and how to make them wash-safe 👀 #Ref #Reference #This is sick

congrats, your curiosity has unlocked the unskippable cutscene of the block printing knowledge i accumulated so far! :D

block printing on fabric is very easy and accessible!!! i've been obsessed with it for the past few months, spending way too much time on insta (the worst social platform...) bc there is a lot of people on there showing off their blocks and process. and when i get Like This my brain is a sponge for whatever techniques i see and experiment with.

INKS

when i first started i used speedball fabric block printing ink. it's water-washable, for ease of tool and workstation cleaning. but once i found out most block inks are oil-based/oil-soluble i had a lot better time washing by first using olive oil to dissolve the ink before i finished with soap and water.

the brown ink i used for the dragon tanks first printing was also very... chunky? and would dry out on the palette pretty fast. so since it was an oil-based ink, i tried using a lil bit of olive oil to help keep it flowing and coat the blocks more evenly, and it worked great!

for the oil-based inks, you can't really air dry them, you have to air-cure them, because oil doesn't "dry" it oxidizes over time. which means you have to wait like a week for this process to happen. the first run of corvid ritual tanks i did, i didn't have a clothing rack for them really, so i hung them everywhere in our spare room

after i tried out screen printing (a different tangent for another time lol), i experimented with using the water-based screen inks with the blocks. there are is a small caveat in that they are thinner consistency, so you need to be careful when rolling them to make sure small crevices/areas on your design don't get flooded and turn out blurry on print. but MY GOD. ONE DAY DRY TIME. very good for me, a person with time blindness, to get tanks event-prepped in time. also way easier and faster to clean off of tools, and even fix small mistakes/smudges by wiping it off the shirt with a wet rag.

for either oil or water based inks, after they cure or air-dry, you need to heat set them. some tips will say you can do this by throwing them in a dryer on high but from what i've read also, home dryers don't get hot enough for long enough! so i used an iron (TEXT TRUNCATED - view reply for link to rest of text)

BLOCKS

speedball speedy carve is nice, but expensive!! esp for the bigger sizes. pros are that it is easy to find at craft stores, and you can do this trick where you print your design on a laser printer and transfer it to the block with an iron.

you can get cheaper 4 or 5 pack A4 size sets of rubber blocks on ebay or amazon. these will NOT take an iron-on transfer (it just bubbled where the laser ink was when i tried.....) so i've just been doing graphite transfers (and sometime stencils with my silhouette cutting machine) instead. more time consuming but hey, once you have the block, it will last you a long time, so it's worth a decent time investment.

i DID just see a tip from thenastynaturalist on insta where you inkjet print on the slick side of the leftover backs of label paper, and gently press and leave it to dry for a day or so. i just finished graphite transferring my next blocks already lol so i'll have to try this on the next one!

you can also get those giant erasers at dollar stores, and smaller erasers too, if you're alright with doing smaller prints. any kind of flat rubber works!

PRINTING

you need a roller/brayer, a glass or acrylic sheet to roll your ink, and i recommend a bucket of water and a rag or you will be using soooo many paper towels. as well as a couple of palette knives to move the ink around, and a spray bottle--or bottle of olive oil in a container with a small tip pour spout, depending on your ink type--to be able to refresh your palette ink every so often, especially for longer print sessions. spray bottle is also handy for cleaning various surfaces and such.

in addition, i saw thenastynaturalist using a continuous mist spray bottle to spray the fabric before printing, helping the ink transfer more evenly. I don't have a continuous mist bottle, but i did test this out as well as i could with the mistiest setting on my regular spray bottle, and it does work really well to reduce splotches where the mist ended up on the fabric! they also use a huge hand weight to press the block into the fabric - i just use a spare dry brayer right now but i wanna try this also sometime

always do an initial printing on paper or fabric scraps before you print on your main piece to prime the block with ink! it won't have enough ink gripped on the block at first no matter how much you roll on. i usually use fabric scraps for this if i can, cuz then you have patches leftover you can do whatever with!

I THINK THAT'S ALL I GOT FOR NOW anyone feel free to send asks for more details on whatever :3

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 4

CUTE!!!!

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 4

Yaaa!

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 3

texas & bluebonnet in gradient inks~

a block print on a navy tank of texas with a heart cut out and a bluebonnet in rainbow ink

model wearing the texas & bluebonnet design

a block print on a navy tank of texas with a heart cut out and a bluebonnet in blue, pink, and white ink in the pattern of a trans flag

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jul 2

Corvid Ritual Tank Top now in black 🖤

black tank with two-headed raven-crow and collar trinkets design

a model wearing the corvid ritual tank with their arms spread wide

a model wearing the corvid ritual tank holding up their sunglasses

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 30

need to aquire some Regular pencils before I transfer the designs to blocks. all the ones that I know where they are are mechanical. and I don't want that tiny tip. it makes it hard to get a nice bold stroke which helps the graphite transfer

also, gonna try out 2 color process for these 👀

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 30

sad that I never ended up saving myself a shoujo lily skirt, and likely won't be able to restock that design in a long while. so I'm taking matters into my own hands and making block prints about it

a screen tablet with bold lined drawings of lilies, manga sparkles, and shoujo bubbles

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 27

bagged and tagged 😎

stacks of yellow bakery dragon tanks, in bags and with size stickers this time

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 26

A Good Stack™️

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 26

folding the tanks after their post-cure wash!

a workstation of apile of unfolded tanks, a shirt folder, and a pile of folded tanks with the dragons face peeking from each of the edges.

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🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 26

finally was able to restock all sizes of the Bakery Dragon tanks after I got cleaned out at Texas Furry Fiesta a few months ago! 🍞

🍟 Fresh Hot Flavors 🐲 @freshhotflavors.bsky.social · Jun 26

the red and blue combo... ! chef's kiss, you're killin' it

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Naidje the Elephant 💜🐘💜 PNGtuber @naidje.bsky.social · Jun 26

Another @mayakern.com skirt came in!

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Gears! Resuming elf opinions @gearfeathers.bsky.social · Jun 24

Work bathroom selfie, but how else are you supposed to see my cool bird shirt and my cool bird skirt at the same time? Tragically you cannot see my cool bird tattoo; clearly I need another.

(Skirt and shirt both from @freshhotflavors.bsky.social)

A woman stands in a bathroom taking a mirror photo in order to show off their outfit. It is a grey tank top with a lighter grey two-headed raven design and a dark blue skirt with ravens on it.

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