About Ask Ash Apparel

I have always been a lover of graphic tees, cool hoodies, and crewnecks. Every vacation, weekend retreat or event was commemorated by a wearable graphic design. Once I moved out of my parents house I started to see just how large my collection had gotten. A bit out of control really, ha! I started getting quilts made of the graphic tees I couldn't part with. For me a graphic tee is more than just a t-shirt. For me they are a memory held forever, or a feeling of when you're wearing it. Some tees are meant for a certain time, some are meant for self expression, some are meant to get dirty in. Why not have one that's all the above? I wanted to create a line of clothes that are practical, function, cute and still tell a little bit about you, the creative! That's where Ask Ash Apparel was born.

The Evolution of Ask Ash Apparel

I first started designing shirts back in high school. We are throwing it back to when making a t-shirt for every sports event or outing was cool. Remember those puff fabric paints you could buy at the craft store? They are super small with a long fine point and you could draw and paint right onto crappy starchy t-shirts, oh those were that days. I made shirts for all kinds of events from volleyball fundraisers to trick or treating for donations to breast cancer foundations.

Breast cancer was unfortunately very prevalent in my younger years, taking the lives of a few of my relatives. Starting before I was born up until middle school it seemed so many women I knew were struggling or had passed from fighting breast cancer. With the combination of helplessness and passion to make change I started fundraising on my own free will. That year I dressed up with my best friend as "fairies for hope" with pink wings, wands, headbands and of course, custom t-shirts. Decked out in our gear we walked the town asking for donations instead of candy. That mission to help and my love for being creative came together for the first time in a way that felt meaningful. I got so many compliments on our t-shirts that I would make shirts for all my high school events after that.

There I was over the years, hands cramping up from squeezing those tiny bottles, measuring letter size in my mind and keeping letters straight with shear focus. I made shirts for youth group events, sporting events, holidays and more. Then I decided to take them a step further. I wanted to still raise money for a cause I held near and dear but wanted to sell more than I could make with just my own two hands. I went to a website called Custom Ink. From what I remember they were the first of their kind where you could design graphics and have them printed on t-shirts. This was crazy cool when it first came out. (I still use them to make our matching family vacation shirts.) So I came up with a catchy slogan and design that would appeal to my peers to try and support the cause. "Keepin' em real," "Battle for the Boobies," and "Everyone Knows Someone." You can guess which year the school intervened after they realized my sales were catching on and floods of "inappropriate" t-shirts were being worn to self orchestrated "pink outs" and school assemblies. In any case, the first year I did my t-shirt sales I felt really good about selling out the stock I had. That I decided to do it the next year. That's when I came to another cross roads to take things to another level.

I was in a business club called DECA and one of the events you could compete in was to write a forty page paper details the business ideas, planning, preparation and outcome for a fundraiser. My teacher told me about it and felt like I could be a shoe in. I was already doing the fundraising work and if I placed it would look really good for the school and the future of DECA at our high school. I'm a nerd too so writing a forty page paper was just a nice little bonus challenge. This is where I really learned to apply business ideas and marketing to my creative ambitions. Placing in the top 3 of the state for my project gave me the external validation that I was doing all the right things. Then I started to see people I didn't know out and about in town wearing the shirt I designed which was a next level feeling. It was so awesome to think someone saw my fundraiser, liked the design and wore their shirt out in public!

Fast forward through the years of fighting my creativity because I was taught it could never amount to a solid career, we are here. I still made t-shirts for family vacations and of course designed t-shirts for a wedding getaway. Then I remembered how much I loved doing it. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I started selling shirts again. With that same best friend I was a "fairy of hope" with. We both have a love for Halloween, a deep deep love. We love the things spooky and cozy but we couldn't find an cute shirts that were good quality that spoke to us. So I decided to throw a few designs together and see what we could do. (I'm a psycho and made the designs to cut with my cricut and peel by hand. 10/10 do not recommend.) Then I did it again on a smaller scale but through a print service called Printify. I didn't quite make the sales I was hoping for so I evaluated everything I did and realized I didn't let it breathe. I posted it online a few weeks before Halloween hoping someone would click and buy. If you're familiar with running a business on Instagram, that's just not going to work. I knew I wanted to keep designing but for who, what, when and why.

Then it dawned on me to do it for my own brand. I got so many compliments of the graphics and thought why don't I make shirts for other photographers or creatives to wear? And that's just what I did. Here we are, the full circle of any excuse to design really neat graphics and wear them proudly. Better yet, you wearing them proudly.

The inspiration was truly different elements of myself that I felt were relatable and hard to find online. Most shirt shops online feel the same with trendy graphics or sayings. Most also have super bright colors or wild graphics. I'm a neutral girly through and through and I bet you are too. Here you'll find earthy color tones with graphics that tell a story about a piece of all of us. Whether you're a photographer, artist, tea drinker or graphics collector like me - there's something here for everyone! If you want to shop the Ask Ash Apparel Line, click the button below!

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