freezer paper stencil viking shirt

I had a falling out with the owner of a local shop recently. I'd gone there to buy a specific t-shirt for my kiddo, one with a cuuuute viking pattern screen printed on it by a company I like, but can't always buy (because good sense dictates I can't spend $30 on a toddler t-shirt on a regular basis).

But I left without it.

It's all too bad because I like to support local business when I can (even if it means waiting for a sale) and I especially like to support mama-owned businesses. More than that, I like to support good graphic designers, and this particular clothing manufacturer hires great ones.

In the end, though, the idea of stenciling a viking design onto a t-shirt isn't copyrighted. In fact, this tutorial that Cheri wrote over a year ago could have inspired the (more recent) designer t-shirt, for all I know. I know it inspired me!

Freezer paper stenciling is something I've posted about before, but this viking design is a whole lot less complex. As you can see, I made it in two different sizes, one for the mister and one for the kiddo.

I also (word to the wise) accidentally cut it into wax paper the first go-around (which DOES NOT WORK) and had to re-do it, so it's a good thing it's so straight-forward.

Cheri mentions in her tutorial that you can find some free-use images on-line and cut them with your Silhouette cutter; you'll be happy to know you can also free-hand the drawing and cut it out with a craft knife if, like me, you're artsy and don't own a Silhouette.

Cut on FREEZER paper, iron onto t-shirt (plastic side down), paint, and let dry.

If your beard is too close to the color of your shirt, lighten it up, dry again, and remove the wax paper.

Heat set, and you're ready to go!

I used a Gap t-shirt from the Goodwill for this design, so the project was really inexpensive and fast. And we like it! I hope you'll link to your freezer paper stencil projects in the comments section below, if you have the urge!

Happy New Year, and thanks for reading!

cheap-o screen printing

A couple of friends I know through work recently asked me if I'd make them a Thermofax screen for some fundraising t-shirts they wanted to print up.*

I was out of Thermofax screens and I couldn't get more by the deadline (they have to be special ordered), so I realized I'd need to go a more traditional route.

Screen drawing fluid + screen filler + framed screen = approximately $45 at the local art supply store. Way out of my budget for a donated screen. I could have justified the expense if I'd been planning to clean and re-use the screen, but I wanted to give them one they could keep for future print runs. I needed something less expensive, but quick and on-hand.

Back in school, we experimented a lot with different media in surface design classes, so I knew there was more than one way to solve this problem. In fact, we played around with a bunch of screen printing methods, and somewhere, at the edge of memory, I knew that there were ways of hacking this particular DIY project.

On-line research (word to Pinterest!) turned up some Mod Podge screen printing tutorials, but regular Mod Podge isn't waterproof, and that's all I had access to. Since I knew my friends would be making a ton of prints, I didn't want to risk any gumminess or dissolution.

Back to the drawing board internets. Where I found an article recommending latex paint, which I have coming out of my ears (figuratively speaking. And only sometimes literally).

I chose to use a (zero VOC) latex primer because it fills gaps so well, but if you don't have any latex paint laying around, you can usually get mismatched quarts cheap at the home improvement or re-buildng store. They're only a buck at my local place! Add that to the 99-cent thrift store wooden embroidery hoop and the (free) mesh polyester curtain fabric (it came with my house, but you can thrift similar ones), and this particular screen + frame only cost a little over a dollar and a couple of hours of my time.

Here are a few photos of the screen I made (using their design).

As mentioned above, the logo is their work; I traced it from the artwork they provided and painted it on the back of the screen. You can see that it's possible to get pretty fine detail on the lettering which opens up a wide world of possibility using text-centered designs and other fine-line work.

Too much ink + too much pressure = a terrible practice print.

Subsequent trials were better.

Their finished shirts turned out A. Mazing. (The printing and photograph below are both the work of people other than me, used by permission.)

(You can visit the Homeless Empowerment Network's Facebook page here.)


And then I caught the screen-printing bug, so I made a helicopter screen for my kiddo. As a happy coincidence, the helicopter screen gave me the opportunity to take more photos in-process.

STEP-BY-STEP DIY

1) Image drawn in pencil on the front of a stretched-tight piece of curtain in a wooden embroidery hoop (hoop up, with mesh screen flat on surface, like it will be when you're printing).

2) Negative space (everything but the printed image) filled in with primer on the back of the screen. Dry very well, overnight if possible. Drying it with a hair dryer will also offer you the advantage of heat-setting the primer.

3) Old t-shirt ready to be printed, with newspaper inside to absorb any seeped paint.

4) Screen on top of t-shirt, with ordinary craft acrylic paint pushed through using light pressure and a plastic gift card in place of a squeegee (you can also use fabric paint or screen printing ink. I tend to go cheap).

5) I didn't rinse between colors and using the tiny make-shift squeegee meant several pulls across the screen, so these have a nice, variegated appearance I liked for this project.

6) This one, too, a piece of the t-shirt quilt planned for our room (when I get around to finishing it up).

7) The key to longevity with anything screen printed it HEAT SETTING! Use an iron with a cloth over your design, or run it through the dryer on hot, and you're good to go!


Thanks to R & E for inspiring my return to screen printing! I hope you guys try out some other projects, too!

* In case you're unfamiliar with the Thermofax screen printing process, here's a short summary. The 9x12" screens come pre-coated with a heat/light sensitive emulsion. This gets run through a vintage Thermofax copier coupled with a reversed, carbon-rich image. The result, in seconds, is a screen-printing screen burned with a near-perfect replica of your image.

Ha! I just got the June/July issue of Family Fun Magazine and they have an article on Mod Podge screen printing! It's a small world, after all.


(p.s. you can make these photographs larger just by clicking on them, but then, you probably already knew that.)


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new batch of coffee bean sacks in my etsy supplies shop

I have a new batch of coffee bean sacks in my Etsy supplies shop. There are some really lovely screen-printed patterns in this batch; here are a few highlights.


















You can use these for making tote bags or messenger bags, Christmas stockings, pillows, or cushion covers, like the one I blogged about here.

Price on most is $8 + shipping.


(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)