Many of you have asked for a more friendly option than PicMonkey for the dark colored shirts for mock-ups. So here it is! You will need a inkscape, a design, and a mock-up background. You can use your own, or check out HoopMama’s Mock-Ups here!

You CAN make mock ups with Silhouette software, or pic monkey, but I will be showing you how to do it in Inkscape which is a free program. So the first thing you will want to do is download that software through inkscape.org. Inkscape is also a great place to design your files and save them as SVG, DXF or EPS formats 🙂

• Download the correct version for your computer software. I use windows, so I used the Windows 64-Bit installer.

***If you are using Windows, to find out if your computer is running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows in Windows 7 or Windows Vista, do the following: Open System by clicking the Start button , right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties. Under System, you can view the system type.***

• Once downloaded and opened. Choose “File” and “Open” and find your mock-up background in your computer.

• After you located your background, there will be a box that pops up. Leave these at the default settings as follows, and then click OK.

• After the background is open, you will want to IMPORT your SVG. You can use PNG if you like the way the colors are done and want a quick mock-up done, but I want to show you how to change colors so it shows on the black background, so I am choosing the SVG.

• This is how it will look when it opens. Obviously, that gray is too dark, so we will change the color. Select the design and right click to push ungroup. Since there are multiple layers in my designs, you may have to ungroup a couple of times to get it all apart.

• After ungrouping, you will need to RE-SELECT all the pieces you want to change the color of. With windows, you will HOLD the “SHIFT” key while clicking with your mouse and selecting each piece you want to change. For example, on the following picture, you’ll see that I selected the “I”, the apostrophe, the “m,” and “sweet.”

• At the bottom of the screen is a color slide bar. Your primary colors are all the way to the left, while your more blended colors are to the right. You can scroll to find the color you like. In this one, I’m just choosing white.

• Once the color is changed, you need to regroup! I find this easiest to move the background out of the way so I can draw a box around the whole design with my mouse and then right click and push group. Otherwise, it’s tricky to select just the design without grabbing the background too.

• You can then moved the background back behind the design and rotate the image how you want it on the mock-up.

• TO ROTATE: Clicking on the design ONCE will bring up arrows which allow you to make the design bigger or smaller. Clicking on it TWICE will bring up arrows in the corner that will allow you to rotate.

• TA-DA! Once you have it positioned the way you want it, IMPORT your watermark and logo and position how you like.

• Select all elements (Ctrl+A on PC), right click, and click group.

From here you’ll need to export it as a PNG image. If the export box is already open on the right side of the screen like mine is, you can skip this step. But if it’s not, you will open it by clicking “File” then “Export PNG Image”

• Once it is open. You will check 4 things:

1. Make sure the entire design is grouped and selected

2. In the “Export Box” make sure “selection” is clicked

3. You will push “Export As” to NAME your file and decide where you are sending it.

4. Click “Export”

After you export it, it will be found in the area that you sent it to in the “export as” area, and it is ready to go!

I hope you enjoyed this! If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected] or leave a comment here!