Update to Screen Print Tees

I had a couple of questions about the screen printed tees I shared a couple weeks ago.  Sorry it's taken me so long to answer you-I didn't forget!

What kind of paint did you use?  I use just regular acrylic craft paint.  It doesn't wash out, fade, flake and it's not stiff once you've washed it.

Do you pre-treat your tees with anything before painting them?  Nope.  The paint stays on well enough that I don't feel I need to.  But that one is completely up to you!  To be honest, I wouldn't know what to use to pre-treat them, so sorry, I'm no help with that.

Hope that answered everything!

Fashion Fridays (on Wednesday): "Screen Print" Tee

Since Who's That has been moved to Friday this week, I thought it only appropriate that Fashion Friday would be on Wednesday.  So here we go!

Hand-Screen Printed Tees

We all have them in our closets and dressers: boring, plain t-shirts that need some pick-me-up.  Screen printing is a great way to do just that.  Now, not all of us are fortunate enough to own a personal screen printer.  So here's my solution.  Paint and freezer paper.  And no need to pre-treat!  To screen print your shirts, you'll need:

T-shirt

Freezer paper

Pencil

Utility knife

Paint-I just use regular ol' acrylic craft paint.  It works great.  Won't wash out or fade or peel.
*If you're doing a large area that will be all one color, spray paint works great*

Iron

Other embellishments, if desired

I like to pre-draw my designs on a drawing pad so I can tweak them and get them just how a want them.  Then I trace the design onto a piece of freezer paper, shiny side down.  This makes a stencil for you to use to "screen print" your design onto your shirt.

Using the utility knife, carefully cut out the design.  Mine is some clouds with a lightning bolt.  I saved the piece for the bolt and you'll see why in just a sec.

Iron on the design onto your shirt.  The waxy side sticks to the shirt, keeping it in place for when you paint.

Paint!  Don't forget to place something in between the layers of your shirt before you begin painting so that the paint doesn't bleed through.  I ironed in the lightning bolt piece so that I would have nice, clean lines.

Once I had painted the clouds, I took out the lightning bolt piece and painted it.  Let the paint dry and then remove the stencil.

And there you go!  If you have other embellishments that you'd like to add, go for it!  Originally I was going to add some small clear beads to the shirt as rain, but decided against it.

Like this shirt?  It's currently for sale in our Etsy shop!

Here are some of the other tees I've "screen printed."

This one is my favorite.  I did the flamingo using spray paint and did a few layers so it was thicker then cracked the paint to give it a crackled look.  No worries about it flaking off either.  I made that shirt 4 years ago and it still looks the way it did the day I made it.

This one was made as a present for a friend.

The vines on this one took FOREVER to cut out, but I think the result was worth it.

This was my first-the stars wrap around the back.