The Crafting Diaries: How (Not) to Screenprint a T-Shirt

Author: Anna Ravenelle

Each week on “The Crafting Diaries” Anna Ravenelle scours Pinterest looking for exciting projects that claim the average crafter (and/or college student) should be able to accomplish and then sets out to prove them wrong. Usually failing in her crafting efforts, Anna works to flesh out the instructions of complicated projects so that you (yes, you!) can avoid failure where she did not.

I’ve had this at-home screenprinting tutorial Pinned for almost a year now. It seemed simple enough: a freezer paper stencil, some fabric paint, and a whole lot of patience could result in some fabulous t-shirt art no one would ever guess I made at the desk in my dorm room. But there’s that key word up there; it only seemed simple. I’ll let you know what I did and where I went wrong, so you can do your best not to fail as miserably as I did, if you’re daring enough to attempt this DIY.

What you’ll need:

• Printed-out design
• Freezer paper — that waxy, plastic coated paper found in the plastic baggie aisle
• Fine-point sharpie
• X-Acto Knife
• Self-healing cutting mat (Google it)
• T-shirt (or other fabric item to decorate)
• Iron
• Fabric Paint and brush
• Tape

 

Firsts thing first (I’m the realest): figure out whatever the heck it is you want on a t-shirt. Having just formally pledged Phi Mu, I was feeling spirited and printed out a few of the Phi Mu logos online. Sounds totally fine, right?

 

Wrong. I picked a sweeping, curly design: you should stay away from these disasters and pick something simple. A square would work nicely.

Once the design is printed, tape it under a big piece of freezer paper and trace the design with a fine-point Sharpie onto the NOT shiny side. This is really important, especially if the design has words in it, like mine did. Trace the design so you are writing on the matte side of the paper.

 

 

Once the design is traced onto the freezer paper, tape the freezer paper to your cutting mat.  If you don’t have an actual cutting mat, that’s fine — some cardboard would work as well, but your X-Acto knife will dull more quickly. Then, cut out your design. If your design has letters with holes in them (for instance, my “P”), cut those holes out before you do anything else, and save the cut-outs. They’ll be important later. I didn’t realize this, of course, so I had to recreate mine afterward. These are important if you want your “O”s to be recognizable as letters, not giant blobs.

Always cut in the direction away from your body; even if it seems more difficult, you’ll be less likely to bleed all over your project (that’s one form of t-shirt art we should all stay away from). Also, turn your paper, not the knife, especially if doing a design with many curves.

 

Once you’ve cut out your design, plug in your iron and grab your t-shirt. For me, that meant going down six floors and garnering many confused stares as I walked into the Cascadilla laundry room with a bunch of craft supplies in hand. Pick where you’d like to place your design, and then simply iron it onto the shirt in that location. The shiny side of the freezer paper will adhere to the shirt, but will easily come off after the paint’s been applied.

 

Once you’ve ironed on the main part of the stencil, iron on any little extra pieces you may have. For me, that was the inside of the “P”, the inside of the “h” and the inside of the quatrefoil. Now, extra-iron it. Your edges should be tight to the fabric; if they’re not, the final design will come out blurred (as you’ll soon see).

Once your freezer paper is ironed on (and extra-ironed on), you can paint on your fabric paint. I used a spray bottle that I got at AC Moore for about three dollars. The tutorial I was following recommended Tulip brand “Soft” fabric paint. I should’ve followed the tutorial’s instructions because within three seconds of spraying my paint on my design, my hands and desk were covered in the white spray. If you’re going to use a spray-on paint, make sure you cover EVERYTHING except your design in newspaper or something similar. Also, don’t over-paint the design; go for more, lighter coats if you didn’t get the coverage you wanted the first time.

 

Once your design is fully painted to the color you want, you can pull the freezer paper off (whether when the paint is wet or dry, I’m not sure; there are conflicting sources on this, but I pulled mine off while wet). When I did, I realized that every single edge of my design was a blurred mess and resulted in a hot (pink) mess of a t-shirt. Oh well. At least I have the makings of another cute headband!

 

 

 

arts and crafts, crafting, tshirt