It's time for our summer break! Please be aware that any orders placed will be posted from 17th August onwards.
Mobile hoop screen printing
Welcome to our mobile hoop screen printing page to accompany our screen printed tea towel kit designed exclusively for Cosy Craft Club by Erin from Pick Pretty Prints! You'll find our video demonstration, tips and inspiration. Enjoy!
What is mobile hoop screen printing?
Screen printing is a way of printing a design onto a surface. It uses a mesh screen where ink is pushed through open areas of the mesh to create the design. It is used for repeated printing of the same design, for example onto t-shirts or tote bags.
Commercial screens are created with a light-sensitive emulsion, which cures to block the areas of the screen that you don't want to print. The ink is pulled over the screen with a squeegee and then the screen is lifted away to reveal the print.
Our kit takes the same principles, but uses equipment that you might have at home, such as an embroidery hoop and a brush. It's a great way to create a simple design that you can print multiple times.
My experience with this kit
Our screen printing kit makes a design that you can print multiple times to decorate a tea towel. We provide the template for a swallow design, but you could do whatever design you like - as long as it's simple enough to recreate with a screen.
I found creating the design on the screen to be fairly straightforward, although I almost went over the line (into the area I wanted to print) with the varnish several times. So my recommendation is that you don't rush this bit and go carefully near the outline. I think it's also quite easy to miss bits so check that you have covered the whole area and you could go over it twice with the varnish if you want to be really sure that you've covered everything.
Printing definitely takes a little bit of practice! You need quite a lot of paint, and you need to really press the paint into your design quite hard and go over it quite a few times to get a good print. You might want to practice more than once on a spare piece of fabric if you have it.
I also quickly realised that if you leave the screen with the paint on for more than a few minutes then the paint starts to dry, which affects your prints. So once you've started, keep going and you should get quite consistent prints.
Having said that, don't worry if some of your prints come out a bit fainter - that's part of the charm! Enjoy the process and admire your finished tea towel.
If you want to see this kit in action, and get more of my tips from my experience with this kit, watch my video tutorial below! (COMING SOON)
Next steps
If you enjoyed screen printing, and you want to do more of it, you could carry on with the same method. You should have varnish (mod podge) left over and you might have another embroidery hoop lying around that you could use, but you will need to buy more silk (I got mine from here). You can also buy more colours of ink from Pick Pretty Paints. Why not try a different design and print a tote bag or even a tshirt?!
Erin has written a beautiful book called 'Beginner's Guide to Screen Printing' which features 12 simple projects for you to try.
You could also experiment with other ways to make a screen at home, such as using a papercut stencil, or create a stencil using a cricut machine. In both cases, you can attach them to the outside of your screen, so they lie between the screen and your printing surface. You can screen off the areas around the edge of your stencil using masking tape. And if you get really into it you could learn how to expose your own screen!
Below is a Pinterest board full of further screen printing tips and project ideas to help you continue your screen printing journey.
