How to Penknife Silk Screen Your Own T-Shirts
Making your own T-shirts is a fun activity to do with friends or young children. It lets you create custom designs without spending a lot of money. But dealing with emulsion can be tricky and easy to mess up if you are a beginner. You can, however, use contact paper instead of emulsion to create your design with a pen and a craft knife.
Things You'll Need
- Foam board
- Contact paper
- Pencil
- Sharpie pen
- Craft knife
- Silk screen
- Screen printing inks in desired colors
- Squeegee
- Stapler
- Masking tape
- Disposable spoon
- T-shirt
- Piece of cardboard
- Drying rack
Instructions
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1
Cut out a rectangle from the center of your foam board at least big enough for your squeegee to fit in. Place frame over a piece of contact paper and trace the inner dimensions of the frame onto your contact paper. Draw your design with a sharpie inside the rectangle you just traced on your contact paper.
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2
Wrap silk screen around foam frame tightly so that it covers the front of your frame. Staple it to the back of foam frame.
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3
Cut your design out of of your contact paper using a craft knife. Peel the backing off your contact paper. Adhere contact paper to the silk screen covered side of your frame with your cut-out design in the window of your frame.
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4
Use masking tape to tape around the edge of the window of your silk screen, on the side without the contact paper.
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5
Slide a piece of cardboard inside your T-shirt to keep the paint from leaking through to the back of the shirt. Place your silk screen over your T-shirt with the design where you want it. The silk screen should be laid with the contact paper side against the T-shirt.
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Place enough spoonfuls of screen-printing ink along the edge of the window of your frame for your whole design--a few spoonfuls for a medium-sized design should be enough. Pull the ink across the screen with your squeegee, making sure that your whole design is covered in ink. Pull the ink across a couple of times, if needed, to get the whole design.
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7
Gently lift the screen from the shirt, remove the cardboard from inside the shirt and hang the shirt to dry.
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