Kaleidoscope Creations

thecutstudio @ gmail . com

Friday, September 10, 2010

Do NOT try this at home!

You'll just waste your time (a little money, too) and get aggravated and maybe tad upset it didn't work out how you envisioned.

I needed to make a bunch of team t-shirts for special olympics. The freezer paper method was fine for numbers on the back but it wasn't going to work so well for the team name on the front. It would've just been too much. Too much work, too much time. So I thought I'd try to make my own silkscreen after seeing it on youtube. Looked simple enough. Looked like it worked well.

I can tell you from experience now... it doesn't. Might be okay for a simple chunky image but otherwise, well, to put it frankly, it sucks. I used the Cricut Storybook font, a decent size, but really it's just so hard to fill in the fabric with mod podge and not get little holes you missed. Instead of the 'trace/draw your image' method, I first tried it with freezer paper. I used too much mod podge and it ran under my letters a bit. I tried again - this time using adhesive vinyl. Better - except now the edges were a bit stuck. Careful pulling up and/or using a craft knife ever so carefull so as to cut through the mod podge and not the fabric and it wasn't too bad. But my test print showed there were areas the mod podge didn't fill in. I don't know - I might even have paint dried in my screen. Won't know if I got it out good enough unless I try it again.

I give up on the homemade screen printing method. I want my money back. *sigh* Ok, I guess I wouldn't know til I tried but I'm disappointed it seems like such a waste. Time and money. It was supposed to help our team save money. Because we don't have any. *sigh*

1 comment:

Chris said...

Oh I remember silk screen printing! I made a beautiful silk screen but never did get a decent print, and never touched that messy paint stuff again after the course was finished - yuck to silk screening! I'm so impressed with you trying it on your own though! :)