Mike and Dawn Bellizia’s son Evan played football, and one day his parents decided to buy a small decal — a football helmet with his number — to display on their vehicle.

Other parents saw it and wanted one.

They asked the Bellizias to find out about putting together a team order.

When Dawn came home from work that day, she asked Mike how his decal order had progressed. Quite well, Mike told her — he had purchased a small printer so that they could make their own decals.

“For about two years, that printer kept us going with decals and banners, but soon I visited the company and bought another machine,” Mike Bellizia said.

“We grew as fast as we could keep up, with new equipment and orders for the business they named Dawn’s Vinyl Designs, first located in Weatherly.

While keeping the shop in Weatherly, they recently opened a shop on Spruce Street in Tamaqua, just around the corner from the Tamaqua Public Library. The new location is much more spacious, with private parking.

“We were renting a store in Tamaqua, the former Klingaman’s, watching for available places, and one day Mary Linkevich walked in and introduced herself, and told us about the CRIZ program,” Mike said. “That was perfect for us and we decided to make the move.”

CRIZ stands for City Revitalization and Improvement zone; a portion of state and local taxes collected in a zone is used to repay debt service. Tamaqua’s participation in the economic stimulus program began in October 2017.

The array of products and services offered by Dawn’s Vinyl Designs is quite expansive. They can make decals in any size, shape or color, and the decals can be used on vehicles, shop windows, helmets, street signs, political signs, any type of clothing, billboards, signs, banners or other object.

The vinyl can be permanent (adhesive) or temporary, car wrap material, bumper sticker material, gloss or matte, even removable wall vinyl.

Work can be done at Dawn’s, at a person’s home or at a business. For example, Evan, now an employee at Dawn’s, was headed out Monday to install vinyl decals on an ambulance at one location and headed to another spot to install vinyl decals on a rollback truck used by a towing company.

Back at the shop, designer Saige Hancharick worked on the design for a specialty T-shirt, ordered for attendees to a commemorative party, while Kasey Green installed logos and numbers for a customer T-shirt order, and Dawn prepared the material for the ambulance decals.

“We do some big orders — such as the decals on the Hazleton transit buses — but the majority of our orders are designed for small to medium businesses,” Mike said.

“As an example we did work for a plumber and his helper — business cards, T-shirts, hats, jackets, decals for the vehicle — our business is to help you improve your business.”

“We don’t have a minimum order requirement,” he added. “That’s our niche.”

For more information, go to www.dawnsvinyldesigns.com, email dawnsvinyldesigns@hotmail.com, or call 570-401-9091.

The business is located on Carbon Street in Weatherly and on Spruce Street in Tamaqua.