DIY Screen Printing Attempt

I finally got a chance to try an attempt to do diy screenprinting. I attempted to do this project with stuff I had at home, so maybe it could have gone better. Whatever, here are my results and they weren't half bad. I found this idea here...

Materials:
- sheer curtain fabric
- embroidery ring
- glue I used fabric glue that was washable so that the fabric with the pattern could be washed and reused.
- fabric paint
- small cardboard (to move the paint thru the design)

Here's the basic technique:

1. First, cut a small piece of the curtain fabric and fit it into the embroidery ring

2. Place the embroidery ring and fabric flat on the pattern that you want to screen print. Then draw the design onto the curtain fabric with a pen. I used a fine point sharpie.

3. Put the glue on all the reverse areas (whereever you don't want the ink to go). This can take a long time if you have a good amount of detail. I'm surprised how long it took me to do the small design I did have. Also, don't put it on cardboard when you're going to glue it. As you noticed, I made this mistake. It stuck to the cardboard, grrr. I found that it was easy enough to just hold it up while I used the paint brush to paint the glue on.

4. Let the glue dry. This can take a while. The one I used said to let dry for 24 hours. I let it dry for 48 because after 24 it still felt a little sticky. (it actually still felt a little sticky after the 48 hours, but I was anxious.)

5. Place the embroidery ring on top of the fabric or whatever you want to screenprint. The design should be against the fabric or paper.

6. Place some fabric paint on one side of the design. Use the cardboard to squeegie the paint thru the design.



7. Slowly peel the embroidery ring from the fabric or paper, and it's done.



It's pretty simple, but the edges didn't work out too well. Next time I'm going to use the Mod Podge glue and the screenprinting ink that craftgrrl suggested.