silkscreening on the fly

About a month ago I was in full procrastination mode so I attended a free afternoon workshop on silkscreening at the University of Victoria. It was really nice to take the afternoon off and do some craft therapy! The instructor had done a lot of silkscreening and loved to teach how to silkscreen on the fly, using basic materials that are accessible and, most importantly, cheap! She had some frames already constructed from scrap wood to which we tacked down the "screen" which was made from thrifted sheer curtains! The design was constructed by first drawing a picture on paper and then tracing onto the screen. The sections of the screen that you don't want printed were taped off or blocked off with nail polish. You can see the image I chose to print - the tape is gone because you take it off after printing to easily clean up the paint afterwards.

You can use fabric paint to print on to fabric, like t-shirts, or acrylic paint to print onto paper - which is what we did. Here are my lovely silkscreen images printed on computer paper (this was a free workshop after all!). My tweet little birdie and another image that the instructor had prepared using photo emulsion (which process she explained to us).

I really enjoyed the silkscreening on the fly workshop and hope to do some more images, maybe on t-shirts. I also like the idea of using freezer paper to print images on t-shirts and other fabric. You can find instructions for the freezer paper stencil over at Amy's blog, Angrychicken.

I've also been making a few cards lately. So much fun. I have all of my card making supplies spread all over the table making it very accessible, but not great for eating dinners. Here is one card I can show and that I actually remembered to take a photo of (the others still need to reach their recipients!). I used a background stamp of French writing with stippling of chalk inks over the stamp image in order to create the background. The butterfly stamp was used for the main image and a few purple jewel stickers were added for sparkle. I used my pearl paints on the butterfly to make the wings iridescence. The fern stamp was used on the border and envelope.


I have been listening to a couple of different podcasts on my iPod when I take the bus. There are quite a few wonderful podcasts out there for knitting and crafting (and other topics as well). One that I like very much is a new podcast by Irie at Irie Woman's Fascinating Life. She has a great voice and I find her podcasts relaxing with her easy pace and great music. Go check it out!

And one last shout out to all of you who have left comments - Thank you!! It really is wonderful to hear from people that enjoy my blog!