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07 August 2013

Doing Apparel Screen Printing At Home

By Nita McKinney


At-home apparel screen printing can save you money and time, and help in garnering praise for your innovativeness. It takes a lot of patience, but making woven-mesh printed T-shirts will have been worthwhile when you get your first compliment. Aim at creating a simple design with a small amount of detail. Depending on the method of printing of your choice, gather the supplies that you require.

You should begin by transferring your selected design onto a transparent paper. The final T-shirt print will look like the one on your transparent copy, hence, check it very carefully. After doing this, you need to build a screen for printing your design. You may purchase a readily made screen from an art/craft store.

Creating a woven-mesh print on your own is the most cost effective option. To do this, you will need to have a frame and nails or staples. You will stretch the woven-mesh on the frame and it will be ready. Just make sure it tightened well using the staples or nails.

Once your woven-mesh printer is ready, then you can have your design on it. Even though you will be doing this on your own, you will need to invest in a photo emulsion kit from the shop. Actually this is the greatest expense you may need to meet in the entire process.

You will now be required to burn the image onto the woven mesh, following the instructions provided on the photo emulsion kit. Next, move the design from the paper onto the woven mesh. Use the heat from a bulb of at least 150 watts.

The next step is to wash the image from the screen. Of importance to note is that you will only wash away the parts that you do not require. Because the chemicals used for crating the design are scorched into the woven mesh; you should use lukewarm water at a low pressure. Alternatively, a sprayer at the kitchen sink can work perfectly.

Place a cardboard inside the t-shirt and the woven-mesh printer on top of it. Press everything out as you work on the hard surface. Pour the ink on the screen. The ink color can be colored or black depending on what you want.

Using a squeegee or wiper, pull the ink to bottom over the woven-mesh printer. You will immediately see your image right there on your T-shirt. Check carefully to make sure the image is transferred. Hang the T-shirt to dry and let the ink to dry completely. When it has dried up, lay it flat on an ironing board and placing a white paper over the screen print, iron it for 4-5 minutes in order to set the ink in place on the shirt.

Apparel screen printing is very creative. It can result in beautiful and unique patterns on any clothing. It is important to have some knowledge on how to take out a woven mesh print in case of a mistake. Realizing a mistake early will assist to prevent losing clothing in the process.




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