Courtesy of Ann K. Hubbard
Their brightly colored T-shirts and onesies featuring designs like “MO’ Please,” “Put an Arch on it,” and “Meat Me in Saint Louis” have been appearing at arts and craft fairs around town. Now Jenny Rearick and Sloan Coleman, owners of screen-printing shop Tiny Little Monster (7207 Manchester Road, 314-449-6900), have their own storefront as well.
The Maplewood-based business, which the duo started in 2010, prints custom orders by hand in addition to producing their own original designs. Every custom order comes with 30 minutes of free design work from Coleman, who is a graphic designer by trade. She says this personal service is part of what sets Tiny Little Monster apart from the competition.
“We’re two girls in an industry of guys who just give you a catalog,” says Coleman. “We take a different approach by providing customized service. Even if a customer provides a design, I’ll take the initiative and provide an alternate design for them to consider.”
Sloan calls the name of their business “something fun and curious,” saying that it “gets people excited about printing shirts.” This year, she and Rearick were both able to quit their day jobs to dedicate more time to Tiny Little Monster.
This summer, Tiny Little Monster debuted a new service: the mobile screen-printing apparatus. With the mobile press, which attaches to a bicycle for easy transport, Tiny Little Monster can print up to 20 T-shirts per hour on location. In the future, Coleman hopes to use the mobile press to do live printing at events around town.
On Halloween, Tiny Little Monster will be giving away glow-in-the-dark treat-or-treat bags to kids in downtown Maplewood. Coleman invites parents to bring their children to the store as their first stop of the evening.
Tiny Little Monster is open from noon to 6 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.
