Hey internet!  After having done a few screenprinting projects (the latest, of course, being The Moon and You’s new shirts),

a friend asked for my advice and I found myself writing a very long list of detailed instructions about how to do this project.  I figured other people might be interested in trying this project too (it’s really fun and cost-effective, and you can apply it to all sorts of fabric projects for the home or use it to make your clothes more awesome).  So I’m sharing the instructions here, too.  I wish I had more photos to share, of each part of the process.  Maybe I’ll try to stage some and add them in.  For now, here are a million unillustrated words:

DIY SCREEN PRINTING
1. Buy a $2 embroidery hoop at Michael’s or A.C. Moore (either plastic or wood is fine), big enough to generously accomodate your design
2. Find sheer curtain fabric (I got a pair of curtains at Goodwill for a couple of bucks and it will last me for probably a dozen screens, if I ever get around to making that many). Your fabric should not be elastic like pantyhose or extremely delicate or lacey, but it does need to be sheer enough for paint to pass through.
3. I’ve tried a couple of ink options. Screenprinting ink is pretty expensive and I’ve only found it in big tubs that I’ll never finish using, especially because it needs to be mixed with a bit of water to be the right consistency for this method. Lately I’m using very cheap fabric paint from the art supply store, partly because it’s not such a big commitment if the color turns out to suck – if I bought a tiny bottle for $1 (the tiny ones seem to last for at least 4 or 5 shirts) and the color’s no good, then no big whoop. When you know you’ll like a color, get a bigger bottle of it, obvs. I tried mixing the colors with a glittery silver metallic paint and it was kind of hit-or-miss (I also think it clogs the screen a bit), so I wouldn’t recommend using it more than a few times. It can look really nice though.
4. Get some Mod Podge. You won’t need a whole lot.
5. Gather a few sizes of paintbrush and sponge brush for painting the Mod Podge onto your screen. If your design is detailed, make sure you have a small enough brush in the mix; you’ll want a nice big ‘un for filling in large areas of negative space, too.
6. Make a spreading tool by folding a piece of cardboard over once so that it ends up roughly the size of an index card; wrap the folded cardboard several times, smoothly and in both directions, with duct tape. Voila.

Now that you have your materials together:

7. Draw or print out your design on paper and tape it to your work surface so it won’t move while you’re tracing.
8. Cut a piece of fabric bigger than your embroidery hoop, and stretch it in the hoop. Trim the edges within about 1/2 inch of the hoop so you won’t have fabric flopping all over the place, spreading paint or water around your work area. This is your screen.  Lay the screen over the design you’re going to trace so that the fabric is touching the paper.  You should be able to see the design clearly through the fabric.
9. Using a soft-lead pencil or whatever tracing tool you prefer, trace the design directly onto your screen. Make sure you know what areas are positive space (where you want the ink to pass through) and which are negative space (where you don’t want any ink). It can be good to scribble in any areas of positive space so you’ll know not to Mod Podge them in the next step.
10. Turn the screen over so that it’s no longer touching the paper. Paint Mod Podge on all areas where ink should not pass though the screen. After your first coat (or while you’re working), hold the screen up to the light to check for little holes or areas that didn’t get painted. Wait until the Mod Podge is dry to the touch (an hour or two?) and hold it up to the light again, filling in any little holes that shouldn’t be there.
11. Allow the screen to dry overnight.

Now you’re finally ready to print! Get ALL your materials gathered nearby before you start, and make sure you’re not too far from a sink. If your paint dries in your screen, you will have to start all over. Here we go:

12. Get a smooth-surfaced piece of cardboard or similar material that you can slide in between the layers of each shirt to keep the paint from soaking through to the back.
13. I printed different colored paint on different colors of fabric, so I found it helpful to make piles of all the shirts I was printing on in each color, and label each pile. For example, the ones I planned to print with blue paint were all in a pile under a scrap of paper that said “blue,” and I printed all of these in a row before washing my screen and moving on to the “brown” pile.
14. It’s nice to have a blow-dryer handy to dry off your screen after each rinse. Waiting blows. Har
15. Have newspaper and paper towels on your work surface – you’ll need to lay down your paint-filled screen and swiping tool between shirts and you’ll definitely need to wipe your hands a lot to keep from getting fingerprints on your shirts.
16. USE SCRAP FABRIC OR A THROWAWAY SHIRT FOR YOUR FIRST PRINT OR TWO – there will be fuck-ups! Plan on having a few extra of whatever you are printing on, for any printing project, because something always goes a little funky.
17. Prep your first shirt by inserting the cardboard between the two layers. Lay the screen down so it’s touching the fabric, and make sure it’s centered, etc.
18. Squirt or glob some fabric paint or screenprinting ink onto the screen. Use a good amount, maybe 3 to 5 tablespoons?
19. Use your duct-tape-and-cardboard spreading tool to swipe the paint around the screen, holding the screen firmly in place as you do so. Don’t under-swipe. Swipe in every direction you can think of, a couple-three times. Swipe swipe swipe
20. In one smooth motion, lift up the screen and admire your handiwork. Remove the cardboard insert from the shirt.
21. Hang your shirts on hangers or drape them over furniture to dry, and follow the directions on the paint or ink re: ironing to set the design. This is one more advantage of using fabric paint: no ironing!
22. Your screen won’t last forever, but it will make many dozens of shirts if treated gently. Do remember never to let anything dry in the screen, and you can always do touch-ups with Mod Podge if holes open up. What seems like a likelier danger is the fabric ripping from so much wetting and drying and pulling to keep it tight in the embroidery hoop, but I’ve only had that happen once to a screen made with very old, brittle fabric.

AAAAAAND that’s it!  Happy printing!