PVA Glue Screen Printing

Ive seen DIY screen printing a few times on Pinterest so i thought id give it a go myself. I followed this tutorial at My Calico Skies

Equipment

Tights (for your screen)

Tapestry hoop

PVA glue (Modge Podge to the North American folks)

Fabric pen

Fabric paint

Card or plastic (to act as your squeege)

Something to print onto

First off make your screen. Stretch your tights across your tapesty hoop. Make it as tight as you can, springiness = movement which is not ideal in screen printing so the tauter the better.
Also try and a use as big a screen as you can in comparison to your design, it makes it much easier to print if you have space around the design.

Draw your shape on the screen with a fabric pen, dont use anything that may run into your design when you actually print it. My design is a bear (if you can see it!)

Then paint around your design with PVA glue - only the uncovered bits will print so try not to get any glue on your design, and leave it to dry. I gave mine 2 coats i the end as i could see a few tiny holes around the design

Once the screen is dry place it on whatever you are printing, im using a plain white tshirt. Place it flat side down so the screen is flush with the tshirt


Splodge on some paint above the design. This is where is useful to use a much bigger frame for your design, gives you more space to do the actual printing.


Then scrape the paint all over the design, try and be as firm as possible to make sure you squeeze all the paint through the tights. I used a bit of scrap plastic as my scraper but cardboard would do, anything firm with a flat edge basically.
Make sure you scrape paint over the whole design and you can go over it more than once if you want to make sure, just be careful the screen hasnt moved if you do.


Then peel of your screen and admire :)
You can see from mine that i used more pressure in the middle than the edges as not as much paint was squeezed through there, but i don't mind, i like inadvertent the mini ombre effect!
Let the paint dry and then follow the manufacturers instructions for fixing the paint to your fabric, and youre done.