Screen Print T-Shirts and Flaunt Your Own Designs

Though apparently complicated, screen-printing is quite an easy task in reality when done through the home method. The process involves using a woven mesh for offering support to an ink-blocking stencil that forms open mesh areas allowing the ink to be transferred as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. Meanwhile a squeegee or roller is rolled over the stencil to force ink through the threads of the woven mesh across the open areas.

Better known as silkscreen, serigraph or seriography, screen printing is similar to the stencil method, which leads to imposition of a design on a silk screen, or a screen made of fine mesh. While the space is coated with an impermeable substance, the ink is pumped inside the mesh to the printing surface.

Design your own T-shirt

You can screen print your own T-shirt with the home method which involves easy steps like choosing a simple design, preparing the screen, tracing out the design, adding a water resistant glue to the non printing areas, printing the T-shirt and finally letting it to dry.

Following is a list of easy steps that may be followed for screen-printing T-shirts at home:

Pre Screening

Create a simple design preferably with bigger lines
Select an even surfaced table as your workstation
Collect your requirements based on your screen-printing method

Print making

Make a copy of your design onto the transparent paper.
Prepare a screen yourself using a frame and some silk screen. You may also buy a pre-made screen from the store.
Tighten the screen as far as possible by stretching it across the frame using nails or staples.
Transfer the pattern onto screen using photo-emulsion kit or screen filler supplemented by a drawing fluid. Transferring a design using a photo-emulsion kit requires the heat to be used from a hanging socket by holding a 150 watts light bulb. Make sure to follow other instructions provided with the kit.
Align a hard cardboard piece inside the T-shirt while laying the screen on top. Ensure that you smoothen out everything before pouring ink through the screen onto the T-shirt. Spread out the ink evenly with a wiper and finally lift the screen to view the transferred image.
Dry the T-shirt completely and iron it for 5 minutes while pacing a clean white paper over the print to set the ink permanently on the T-shirt.

And, after all this hard work it is time to flaunt your latest screen-printed T-shirt.