My DIY Weekend

I was feeling crafty over the weekend so a friend came over on Saturday, and we tried screen printing for the first time.  Though we did not anticipate how long the process actually took, it was fun nonetheless.

The Starting materials to work on my stencil

When I went shopping for the materials, it was astonishing to find a whole side of DIY craftiness I never knew about.  JoAnn's had a wealth of supplies for etching, drawing on glasses and/or plates, even some really cool metallic crackle paint for ceramics!  My mind was spinning with the possibilities for another time.  Seriously, I could totally spend hours in that section of the store just exploring the stuff on the shelves.

Forcing myself to focus on the task at hand, I purchased the all purpose acrylics I wanted needed, along with the embroidery hoop and markers.  When Tiffany arrived later that evening we set out to make our stencils!

We started stretching the pantyhose over the hoop and securing the rings together to keep the nylon from slipping.  Then we took our design and traced it on the nylon using a permanent marker.  Next, we covered all of the negative space (places where we didn't want the ink to come through the nylon) with our trusty Modge Podge.  As we did this step, both Tiffany and I reminisced on the days of our youth because the smell of it brought us back to elementary school.  After the Modge Podge was applied, we had to let the entire thing dry completely.  This is where we didn't realized that it takes time for this stuff to dry.  Incidentally we are picking up our screen printing craft later this week, but I went ahead and tested my stencil on a shirt to see how it turned out.

The final result is below!

I can definitely see where I didn't cover up my negative space very well because the acrylic came through, but overall I like how it turned out.  It has that almost grungy graphic T-shirt feel where the prints are never absolutely perfect.  I dub this one a success on all accounts, and since the acrylic is water based, I just rinsed my stencil off and let it dry and Its good as new for another printing session!