Everyone always asks how the hell Angie got mixed up in this t-shirt gig, and
this is the story.
Early 2002, Angie Morelli was in the Marines, in the fleet and getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan when a fellow Marine was getting out of the military and had a vinyl plotter that he wanted to sell. Angie had the money, and purchased the plotter and all of the materials from him, and started coming up with new designs and ideas. The business was called Digital Decals (because of all the ideas that came up, digitaldecals.net was not taken), and a website was set up to act as an online catalog as to what was carried. She would make hundreds of decals in all different sizes and colors, trying to have at least one new one every time she went, and would go on base at MCAS New River from squadron to squadron, school house to school house, selling these decals. Soon, Marines started expecting her, giving her ideas, and the word spread about these helicopter and Marine decals.
After coming back from Afghanistan fall of 2004, Angie approached an audio shop in Jacksonville called Street Sounds and started going up there every Wednesday and Saturday to sell decals, on top of selling decals on base. Soon after, she had to opportunity to have an office at Onslow Audio and sold decals out of there for a while. This, on top of selling decals on eBay and at a scrapbook shop. She built up her catalog and used most of her free time making decals and learning about her plotter program.
Summer of 2006, Angie got out of the military and opened a small kiosk in the Jacksonville Mall. It took her two weeks to build up a bunch of decals for show, make the crappy little display she made, and file all of the appropriate paperwork to open, but she finally opened Sept 15, 2006. She was slammed. It was a rare occasion to see her or an employee just sitting around at the cart because there was a constant flow of traffic. They would have to use the tables or empty carts to keep up with the flow because of the large sizes or the quantity of orders at one time. By the middle of October, it was clear they had outgrown the cart.
November 1, she opened an in-line store with Unique Sports at the Jacksonville Mall. January 2007, all of the holiday money that was made got dumped back into the business by investing in a heat press, the machine that presses vinyl into clothing. They started with just black and white shirts, and black and white vinyl, and then slowly started adding more shirt colors and vinyl colors as they made more money. Then they added hoodies, then zip-ups, kids shirts, baby clothes… anything that a customer asked for became an idea and once it was asked for more than 3 times, it was bought.
Unique Sports moved out, My Wicked Scents moved in, and they kept cracking until they got too big for that store. Digital Decals and My Wicked Scents closed at the
Jacksonville Mall that April. A loyal fan literally threw himself against the gate when they were inside packing up and said he would stay there until we opened again.
Without any sort of backup plan, and nothing to tell customers besides to keep checking the website, the girls looked for a new location and found one across from MCAS New River. Angie signed the papers, and everyone chipped in to
help with the new store. It finally opened May of 2007. They enjoyed their new spacious location and started screaming into every outlet they could, “Hey, we are over here now!” and finally the customers started finding them again.
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Angie Morelli & Wendy Meyer Digital Decals & My Wicked Scents |
Angie unplugging the open sign on the first day at the Plum Pointe Store. |
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Angie and her favorite Jacksonville employee Marcia on Marcia's 1 year anniversary with the store. |
October 2007, Angie moved to Las Vegas, NV to open the new Customistic: Decals, Shirts & Stuff.
The new store needed a new name because it wasn’t just decals anymore (which the lovely Ana provided them with), and a new logo (which was inspired by Ana's love with stars), and opened October 18th at The Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas, NV. They pay homage to their roots by providing a 15% Military discount, and are still listening to it’s customers and trying to provide everything that is being asked for.
