The Lady Beekeeper

I have been dyeing to try screen printing for a while now.  (See what I did there?)  I have been re-reading “Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre“*, a book I got for my college costume class, and I’ve wanted to try some of the other techniques.  Two weekends ago I finally got around to it!  DanyCon inspired me to create t-shirts and at first I was convinced I was going to stamp them all.  I still haven’t posted instructions for the cute stamped tea towels I made as favors for Erin’s shower, but I promise I will at some point.  Well stamping is fun and all but I wanted to try something new!  Enter screen printing, my new obsession.

*Holy cow this book now retails for $90 on Amazon!

The book tells you how to make your own frame, or where to find one, but I had a better idea.  My mom has been buying me frames (for that project I swear I will eventually tell you about).  The last one had a painting that I would describe as awesome if I had drawn it myself (I would really be proud of it).  But I didn’t draw it myself so I decided to reuse the canvas as a screen for printing.

Wouldn’t you have been proud of this painting if you’d done it? Well I didn’t, so I cannibalized the canvas.

I then purchased a squeegee (can you believe that is a real word), screen printing ink, and mesh screen off amazon.  When I decided I also wanted to screen print the welcome bags, but I could not iron the Oly*Fun I also purchased a screen printing ink fixer off amazon.

Basic Screen Printing 101

What you’ll need:

• Old Canvas from an ugly painting (or screen printing frame)
• Flat head screwdriver (to remove staples)
• Staple gun & staples
• Screen printing mesh (I used this kind – mesh count 160 – I will discuss this later)
• brown packing paper (like the kind I rescue out of amazon packaging)
• blue painter’s tape
• exacto knife & cutting mat or cardboard
• Squeegee (like this one)
• A piece of scrap wood or plexiglas about the size of your screen.
• Screen Printing Ink (I used this kind)
• Screen Printing Ink Fixer (optional – unless you cannot heat set.  I used this stuff)

1. Remove the staples from the sides of your canvas.  (Skip this step if you purchased a screen printing frame).
   

   Remove the staples from the canvas

2. Mark the center of the frame on all sides.
   

   Mark the center of each side of your frame.

3. Cut a piece of screen printing mesh slightly larger than your frame.  You’ll be wrapping the fabric around the frame, similar to how a canvas is stretched on a frame, so slightly larger than the measurements of the canvas you removed is great.
   

   Cut a piece of mesh slightly larger than your frame.

4. Iron the mesh on a low synthetic setting.
   

   Iron mesh on synthetic setting.

5. Staple the mesh to the width of the frame.  I found the easiest way to do this was to start as one end on one side of the frame and gently stretch and staple along the width of the frame.  When I completed one side I moved to the opposite side of the frame and first pulled it taunt then stapled again as above, making sure this time I’m taunt in both the horizontal and vertical directions.
   

   Staple mesh to frame.

6. Staple the end of the frame.  Here I followed the same procedure as above, keeping the entire end taunt.  When I got to each corner I folded under and stapled the excess fabric, like you’d do hospital corners on a bed.  I repeated at the other side.  By this point my screen was evenly taunt with no slack anywhere.  **If you have slack anywhere in the frame you will have issues with printing.  If you see any slack or bowing, removing the staples causing the problem, pull taunt again and readjust.
7. Next you’ll want to create your stencil.  The art of screen printing at its very base is really just a way to stencil on fabric.  There are many different ways to prepare your screen with an image.  Some sources online use photoresist ink, I’ve seen folks that coat the negative areas of the screen in modge podge to resist the screen printing ink.  What I did was suggested in my fabulous dyeing book and worked amazingly well.  It also meant I didn’t have to do anything other than rinse with water to reuse the screen afterwards.  I’m calling this the “brown paper” technique.
8. Here I printed out my image of Dany and some lettering I wanted to include below the picture.  Big, blocky letters are critical.  One problem with the brown paper technique is that you cannot leave whitespace dots anywhere in your image unless they are connected somehow to the rest of the negative area of the image.  This technique works great for blocky designs, and silhouettes.  The image I used might look familiar – a version of it is hanging on my wall.
   

   Chunky shapes are easiest.

9. Cut a piece of brown craft paper (or recycled amazon packing paper like me) slightly larger than your screen and make sure it is perfectly flat.  I always iron my paper to make sure it is flat.
   

   Iron your brown craft paper flat.

10. Center your image  over the craft paper on top of a piece of heavy cardboard or a cutting mat.  Cut out your image with the exacto knife – make sure you are cutting through the brown paper as well.
    

    Cut your image out with an X-acto knife.

11. Gently remove the areas you cut from the brown paper.  This is your stencil!
    

    This is your stencil!

12. Next mask off the edges of your screen with blue tape on both sides.  You’ll want a spot at the top to use as a “well”.  This is for added safety since the brown paper should resist the ink.
    

    Mask off area around image.

    

    Mask on both sides of screen.

13. Insert your plexiglas or wood into your shirt or between your fabric and the table.  Without the plexiglas or wood, your design may bleed through the fabric to the other side.
14. For the first print put the brown paper stencil down exactly where you want the image to be.  Put your screen down on top of the stencil, lining up your center mark on the screen with the center of the stencil (and center of the shirt or fabric).
    

    For the first print place down the stencil first with the screen on top of it.

15. Next add your ink in a line to the “well” created by blue tape above the image.  You’ll have to experiment with using more or less ink.  Too much ink will flood your screen, too little and you will run out of ink before you hit the bottom of the screen.  *I found the more ink the better.  
    

    Add ink to your “well” at the top.

16. Here I had my husband (or a bunch of soup cans) hold the silk screen down. It is easiest with a second person.  Using your squeegee and one fluid motion, drag and press the ink down the screen.  *This is something else you’ll want to experiment with.  I believe my ink may have been too thick for the fine mesh I purchased.  I found that dragging the ink down with medium firmness once then going over the screen a second time, pushing more firmly, had the best results.  My squeegee also kept hitting the bottom partway through the text.  I think I should have moved my design upwards more so I wouldn’t have this issue.
    

    Will held down the screen as I used the squeegee. This is post squeegee. (Notice the discarded soup cans that were attempting to hold the screen in place.)

17. When you are finished squeegeeing, have your partner slowly let go and you can gently lift the screen off the fabric.  You’ll notice that the brown paper will come with the screen (since according to my book it will be held on with capillary action between the threads and paper).
    

    Here’s what it looked like with the screen removed.

18. Gently remove the wood or plexiglas from the shirt/fabric and hang the shirt or fabric until dry.  At this point follow the instructions to set the ink or fixer.
    

    My basement looks like a screen print shop!

19. Repeat steps 13-18 until you’re done with all your prints, then remove the brown paper, rinse the screen out and remove the taped off areas to start again!

Total cost for all supplies 

• $3 per shirt (11 shirts total plus 10 bags total)
• $16.41 for 3 yards of mesh (that will last me for 12 screens)
• $16.41 for screen print ink (I probably used 1/8 of the container for all the shirts and bags)
• $21 for the fixer (this was pricey and I barely used any of it, will probably last me 100 years).
• $11 for the squeegee

$65 plus the cost of shirts

The total cost per shirt (if you assume I have to buy everything again next time, which I won’t) was $9.  Really not too bad even considering that, but the cost of materials that I actually used (including the cost of the screen) was only around 55 cents per shirt.  $3.50 a shirt’s not too bad at all!

So this past weekend we held a silly event we called “DanyCon”.  Based on the DanyCast it was a weekend board game convention held at our house for both Will & my siblings & significant others.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to show you some crafts I did to create welcome “swag bags” for the event and also the menu ideas and suggestions for an “effortless” board game party.

Well today let me tell you about the welcome bags themselves.  You may have seen my post on the DIY Reusable Grocery Bag made from rip-stop nylon.  That bag is AMAZING but it is fairly costly (the rip stop nylon is $8 per yard at JoAnn Fabrics).  It also involves curved pattern pieces which doesn’t maximize usage of the material and is a bit wasteful.  For the DanyCon welcome bags I wanted to create reusable grocery bags similar to the ones you see in grocery stores. Like this:

Reusable Grocery Bags off Amazon

And of course I wanted to make them myself for cheaper than you see here, since I’m crazy.  Yes it turns out you can make them for cheaper than $2 a piece (if you ignore cost for your labor) and you can sortof assure they weren’t made by some unethical sweat shop in China.  I’ll get to the sortof part in a minute.

The key to the cheap production value is using the exact same material that they use for these bags commercially.  After some research I discovered the “fabric” is a dirt cheap synthetic material that they call Olefin.  Upon discovering this, I also discovered that Olefin is produced by Fairfield and sold to hobbyists under the brand name “Oly*Fun“.  I purchased a 10 yard bolt of it from amazon for 12.74.  At that price even if the bags required a yard of fabric (which they don’t) they only cost $1.27 a piece (and I only used half a yard – so these cost a whopping 63 cents each…)

So let me get to the “sortof” made in the USA part.  After impulse buying the fabric on Amazon, I did some research on the production of Oly*Fun.  Oly*Fun (like many synthetic fabrics) is manufactured in China. Having never visited the factory, I cannot vouch for the conditions of the textile workers who make the fabric, which leads me to the “sortof”.  On top of the civil liberties concerns, I read some very negative blog commentary on the environmental impact of olefin production.  These posts made it seem like using olefin fabric for reusable grocery bags was doing more harm than good.   I got scared and did some research myself and I could not find any papers to back up their claims.  The papers I read showed there was a range of more and less environmentally impactful ways to create the fiber.  I have a friend who has her doctoral degree in polymers, so I will ask for her knowledge on the subject.  For now I am not feeling guilty for saving bags from the landfill!

Though I like the shape of the reusable bags above, I really wanted something like my last bag that could fold and fit into a purse.  Here is what I came up with that is very similar to my last bag but reduces fabric waste!  I call it:

DIY Foldable Tote Bag (for 63 cents…)

Oly*Fun has no nap, no bias, and does not fray.  For this reason it is an amazing beginner fabric.  If you want to make this pattern even more beginner friendly you can omit the pocket and velcro pocket strap (Steps 5,6,10,11, 12, 13,15)!

For each tote you will need:

• 1/2 yard of 60″ wide Oly*Fun fabric
•  Polyester thread
• 1 inch Velcro

1. Cut your Oly*Fun fabric into the following rectangles:

• 1 – 30″x17″ body  (Since Oly*Fun is 60″ wide you can conveniently make 2 from one cut!)
• 2 – 15″x3″ handles
• 1 – 5.5″x3″ velcro pocket strap
• 1 – 5.5″x 9″ pocket

Cut pattern rectangles

2. Fold your 30″x17″ body rectangle in half to form a 15″x17″ rectangle.  The fold will be the bottom of the bag.  Fold under 1″ on the top of the bag.

Pin under 1 inch on each side of the bag top for added strength.

3. Prepare your strap and handles by folding under 1/4″ on each long side of the piece.  Then fold the entire piece in half.

Pin under 1/4″ on each side of the strap and fold in half.

4. Stitch along both sides of the strap and handles, 1/8″ from the edge.

Stitch close to both edges of the handles and strap.

5. To prepare the pocket, fold under 1/2″ on the long side of the pocket.

Pin under 1/2″ of the top of the pocket.

6. Stitch close to the edge.

7. Pin the handle to the bag on top of the folded under inch of the bag. Make sure each side of the handle is equidistant from the side of the bag.

Pin handle to bag

8. Repeat for the second handle, be sure to line it up with the other handle.

9. Sew across the 1″ strip of fabric, 1/8″ from the top and bottom of the fold.  Make sure sure the handle is attached to the reinforced top during this stitching.  Repeat for other side of bag.

Stitch handles to the bag sewing close to the top and bottom of the reinforcement strip.

10. Sew one side of the velcro piece onto one side of the pocket strap.

Attach velcro to one end of strap.

11.  Fold the pocket in half with the right side out.  Center the opposite side of the velcro piece onto the pocket (make sure to account for the half inch of seam).  Stitch.

Attach velcro to pocket.

12. Turn the pocket inside out and pin the pocket strap to the other side, aligning with the position of the velcro on the pocket.  Attach the strap by stitching close to the bottom and the top of the seam allowance.

Attach strap to pocket.

13. With the pocket folded in half, stitch the lower edge of the pocket closed.

Stitch bottom of pocket closed.

** Here is where I did the screen printing on the bag.  More on this next week!!

14. Turn the tote inside out.  Pin both sides of the bag.

Pin side seams of bag.

15. Position the pocket in the center of one side of the bag seams.  Adjust the pins to pin the pocket to the bag.

Pin pocket to side seam of bag

16. Stitch both side seams, taking care to sew the pocket to the bag.

Stitch side seams of bag, including pocket.

17.  Turn inside out and enjoy!

Finished Tote Bags

This past fall, Will’s & my best friend, Ryan, got married to his perfect match – a fabulous woman from Pittsburgh. Naturally the wedding was in Pittsburgh and my friend, knowing I love to help with anything wedding related, asked me to create a wedding map insert for their welcome bags. I had made one of these for our own wedding but I’ll admit I was not really that happy with it. (See below.)  It has a lot of empty space and is just black and white. IMO Ryan and Lydia’s map came out WAY BETTER than the one I had done for ours. I figured out a new way to do things that I’m going to share with you.

With some basic tracing and drawing skills, plus some basic photo editing skills you too can create your own wedding map. Or, since you know how much I love weddings and helping people prep and plan, just ask me to!

Make your own wedding map

You will need:

• A pencil and really good eraser
• A fine point sharpie
• 8.5×11 paper
• Access to a scanner (via library or otherwise)
• Access to the internet (and potentially a printer depending on your drawing skills)
  (optional depending on your drawing skills)

1. Make a Google map of your wedding sites. My friend had a full weekend of events planned and wanted the following pointed out on the map:

• Wedding Hotels
• Wedding Location
• Friday Welcome Picnic Location
• Rehearsal Dinner Location
• Friday Night Rooftop Drinks

2. Add in several touristy sites surrounding and intertwined with the locations for the wedding events. You can use artistic license to move things around later. Also add to the map any famous landmarks. My friends wanted to include the rivers and three of the famous bridges in Pittsburgh, but things like rivers, lakes and mountains make great borders as well.

3. Sketch out on 8 1/2 x 11″ paper the main landmarks in the area – for Pittsburgh this was easy – the 3 main rivers, but you can use anything like mountain ranges, or main highways to divide up the map. This is where you will use a bit of artistic license. I found it easiest to look at the Google maps page and freehand draw some lines indicating the rivers, but you could probably put in more accurate borders using the tracing technique in 6 below.

Rough sketch the areas of interest with the topographical boundaries

4. Use Google maps to determine the main roads in each area and mock sketch them on your map in relation to one another. Some maps need to display hour drives from church to venue on them, so these maps end up being far from accurate. I think the most important thing here is to give a semi-accurate picture of where each point of interest is using some cross streets. Do the best you can with the space you have but be sure to leave enough room to add in pictures and names of the wedding sites. When you’re happy with your positioning of landmarks and roads in 3 & 4 ink everything in sharpie.  I found it easiest to do a rough sketch and then copy the map to a final sheet of paper using the technique in step 6.

Sketch out the main roadways

5. Find images of the buildings you want to add to the map, or alternatively use cute symbols to represent these landmarks if the buildings are unimpressive. For example you could draw a bed to represent a hotel chain or champagne glasses for the rehearsal dinner. For cute symbols, adding the word “clip art” to your google search will produce images that are very easy to trace. Sketch or trace (after printing) these images onto individual sheets of paper.

Sketch clip art and pictures of buildings to use to mark the places of interest onto a separate sheet of paper.

6. To trace the images you can create a makeshift tracing station for cheap – I used a plastic bucket (previously used to hold kitty litter), a sheet of clear plexiglass discarded from a cheap frame (actually the frame I used for my dog silhouette painting), and a work lamp – though any small lamp with a low wattage bulb will do (you don’t want the bulb to get too hot in the box – CFL or LED is best). After you trace each symbol add labels as desired. Make sure to outline everything in black sharpie when you’re done.

Makeshift tracing box.

Trace images onto separate piece of paper.

7. Here’s where my explanation diverges from what I actually did*.  Scan the 8.5×11″ page with the roads and landmarks as well as all the drawings and symbols of the wedding sites. I scanned mine using the “black and white” setting with the highest resolution. My scanner only outputs PDFs so I then had to convert it to an image in order to open them with my favorite editor. To convert the pdf to an image I followed the instructions here http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-PDF-to-Image-Files to use Google docs to convert to a Word document and then copy the image. Open the images with your favorite editor (I highly recommend paint.net which is free).  *[Here I actually drew out the entire wedding map onto one sheet of paper without using the editor THEN I scanned the entire thing in to add minor adjustments and coloring and a border. ]

Scan your drawing onto the computer using black & white settings at the highest resolution

8. Make the roads and landmark page your background layer and then create another layer for the symbols. Start moving each symbol to the appropriate location on the map. You can resize them as necessary. At this point you’ll also want to remove the background color completely.  You can do this by highlighting a region of white and deleting it.

Remove the background color and then move any labels or symbols on the map, making adjustments as necessary.

9. I used an additional layer to add a border and color to the map. The border the drew by hand on 8.5×11 paper similar to step 3 then I scanned and added it to paint.net as in step 7 adding it to a third layer. Then I filled in the area inside the border with a background color. I used the eraser function to remove color from the map where roads and other landmarks were.  Since you removed the background color in step 8 the colors you added in this step will show through in the top layer.  

10. I followed the same draw, scan, import steps to add the couple’s name and wedding date and little filler hearts and flowers.

Here’s the copy sans color (I like this one):

And here’s the final copy they used (with their wedding colors):

I hope this helps someone else out there!  If it does, please let me know by commenting :).