Simple One Color T-Shirt Screen Printing

The big guys at EZScreenPrint let their lovely employees use their materials for personal projects and art. Which is great for the crafty and artistic people and really great for those people who get asked by their friends to make t-shirts *cough cough* like me. A friend of mine has a team in an upcoming dodge-ball tournament and of course I was his go-to gal to get some custom shirts made. I was asked to screen #TWERKTEAM in white on the front of blue t-shirts. Strange dodge-ball team name if you ask me, but I'm here to screen print and not offer team name alternatives :) Here are some photos of my process:

 

NOTE: There is a difference between regular Speedball white ink and Opqaue Speedball pearly white ink. I sort of took advantage of the fact that these t-shirts aren't black, so I decided to print with regular white ink. Right after printing, the white looked amazing on the blue t-shirts. However, after 30 minutes to an hour, after the ink started drying, the bright color started fading and it didn't pop as much as it did freshly printed. In the end it worked for my buddy, because it gave it almost an aged, old newspaper look. However, if you really want white ink to stand out on dark fabrics, even not so dark blues, I definitely recommend opaque inks.

How-To Print a Two Color Application

Random fact about me: I’m in a Subaru owners car group based in the city San Luis Obispo, CA. Recently, a few of the members asked me to make t-shirts with our groups logo “SLObaru” for a Subaru event in southern California. I used a two color application process that’s actually much easier to do than it sounds, and whether you are in a car group yourself or just have a design with multiple colors, this process can work for you.


First, I started with my artwork (pictured above) and printed it off on my ink jet printer onto ink jet transparency. It is important that the design be as opaque as possible, as it will result in a high quality stencil. Using the EZScreenPrint basic starter kit materials, I exposed my silk screen stencil for one minute in direct sunlight using my artwork. After letting it soak and rinse out following the instructions found in the kit or video found at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU8V_ePdXtk  I was ready to start screen printing my t-shirts.


When following a two color application process, the first step is to block off a portion of the stencil that will be the secondary color. I found using blue painters tape is the easiest solution for this step. For my design, I put painters tape over the portion of the stencil that reads “baru.” I found a Speedball screen printing ink that closely matched the STi “Cherry Blossom Red” which is called, Florescent Magenta. I placed the stencil over my white t-shirt, and using the squeegee provided in the screen print kit, I pressed the ink over the stencil. I lifted the stencil and brought it down over the next t-shirt, and repeated the process until all my t-shirts had the pink “SLO” screen printed on the front.


Once I allowed enough time for the ink to dry, I removed the tape from the “baru” and placed new tape over the letters “SLO” on my stencil. I repeated the same process as before except I used the black Speedball screen printing ink. After all my shirts had the secondary color, I allowed it to air dry then heat set each shirt with an iron.

Sloane wearing the SLObaru t-shirt made with EZScreenPrint silk screen stencils

My friends were thrilled to see the finished results and were extremely impressed with how professional the t-shirts looked without having to pay professional prices.

Easy Way to Screen Print a Custom T-Shirt - EZScreenPrint Step 2

Easy do-it-yourself screen printing on t-shirts using EZScreenPrint silk screen materials.