At home silk screening on the cheap!

Silk screening can be fun, but it can also end up costing you a fortune. If you want to print your own clothes and bags, but are a poor starving student like I am, this is an easy and cost efficient way to add images to your clothes.

Step 1 Getting Started

Although there are a handful of things that you do need for this activity, most of them are everyday items that can be found around the house.

What you will need:
- Black and white image (printed or drawn)
- The t-shirt (can also be used on a bag, pants, whatever your heart desires)
- Fabric screen printing ink (I used a brand called speedball. Highly recommended and not a mission to find. Available at fabric and craft stores)
- A thick glue (mod podge is my favourite and is cheap and available everywhere)
- Embroidery hoop ($2.05 at Fabricland)
- A sheer material (I used an old pair of nylons that had a run in them)
- Pencil
- Paintbrushes (various sized depending on how detailed your image is).

Comments

[reddoor545]

Would tulle be a good substitute for nylons?

[raven75]

excellent! great job have to try this. thank you for sharing!

[thedoghouse]

Love this screen printing technique - I do it the same way myself ;-)

[kit-kat]

Thank you I really hope I can do it. Kat

[dchall8]

I am sure Ingela found the other Instructable on this topic. I think it would at least be the polite thing to do to acknowledge the fact that you did your research first and still thought you should post another Instructable because you have something to add.

I did this based on the earlier version. For an image I took a picture and created a black and white image. Getting that right was the hardest part of the project, and it still came out wrong. Have patience and step back from the final image to make sure there are no problems. I tinted my Mod Podge with food coloring so I could see it. My table top was white and white Mod Podge was just too hard to see. I used inexpensive acrylic house paint (custom color from Home Depot) instead of the expensive Speedball paints. Acrylic house paint Never comes off a shirt. For a sheer material I got some cheap, not stretchy, lace at Wal-Mart. It was reasonably sturdy to transfer the design. To spread the paint quickly and evenly across the stencil I dumped a load of paint and spread it with an old credit card. As I recall all these hints came from Threadbanger's Instructable and the comments.

You can reuse the stencil if you clean the paint out quickly. You can make several prints at one time, but the paint (or ink) will start to dry and fill the holes, so keep the process moving and be ready with a hose to blow the paint out as soon as you are finished. If the paint dries, it is permanent. For that matter, you could probably use acrylic paint instead of Mod Podge to create the original stencil.

[Kiteman]

Nice idea - can you re-use the screen at all, or is this strictly a one-off process?

[gmoon]

What a cool technique! And much easier than typical silkscreening...

[Babyshoes]

Cool! I would imagine that using a VERY soft, slightly blunt pencil for your tracing would be helpful in preventing rips in the nylons. Would a marker run with the paint, d'you think?

[GorillazMiko]

Wowzerz, that's awesome! It came out great too, and that's pretty funny. (The shirt, of course). Great job, hopefully I can do this!