DIY Screen printing

Published March 5, 2011

Making your own T-shirt is SUPER easy! You could actually use this technique on whatever fabric item you wanted to screen print.

Wanna make your own?

You’ll need:

A t-shirt or other item to paint

Freezer Paper

Fabric Paint

Iron

This is the brand of fabric paint I used. My Hobby Lobby (yes, it’s MINE) had it for $2.99.

First thing you do is wash whatever you’re screen printing.

Then cut out your stencil with freezer paper. I used my Cricut, but you could use your silhouette or even just trace an image and cut it out with an x-acto knife or scissors. If you are using a Cricut or Silhouette, the freezer paper goes on your mat shiny side to the sticky side.

If you wanted to do letters, like on the back of a jersey or something, then just print out whatever you want on the computer and trace it onto the freezer paper. (shiny side down)

Remember, wherever the freezer paper is, your paint won’t be. So most likely, you’ll have to use the “negative” of your image.

Once you’ve got your stencil, iron it on to your shirt, shiny side down.

(Leave a little more edge than I did.)

Then just paint on top of your stencil. I just used a foam brush. This will leak through, so put something inside your shirt so you don’t get your image on the back too. I used a cookie sheet.

Peel off your stencil and let it dry for 24 hours. Once it’s dry, put a thin piece of fabric over your image and iron. This will “set” your paint.
Ummm… Please make sure you use an ironing cloth. You may notice on the red monster truck shirt, it looks a little smeared. That’s cause I tried to cut corners and skip the ironing cloth. I know, lazy.

And there you have it!

Yeah, he gets sick of pictures!

And he was SOOOO excited for this Monster Truck shirt! This boy loves him some Monster Trucks!

If you do this project (or any of my projects), I want to see it! I’m collecting photos of projects my readers do for a future “show and tell” post, so please, email your completed project pictures to: mycorduroydreams{at}gmail.com