- Hello and welcome. This is Angie with
thecountrychiccottage.net. Today, we're gonna talk
about screen printing with your Cricut machine. So I'm gonna use my Cricut.
I'm gonna cut some vinyl. I'm gonna apply that to a silk screen, and I'm gonna silk screen a few projects. So that includes this shirt, as well as a few other surprises. If you're new to silk screening, this video is perfect for you. So I'm gonna kinda go
over a beginner's guide, the materials you'll need,
how to do it in general. You can definitely find
some more advanced tips, techniques, tools, that
type of thing, I'm sure, by surfing around on YouTube. There's some really great silk
screening YouTube channels. But I just kinda wanted to
offer a beginner's guide because it's something else you can do with your Cricut machine. Plus, if you're gonna sell shirts, so let's say I have this
design and I wanna sell it, I wanna make multiple pieces
over and over and over again. Huge order, silk screening
is the way to go. You can make a lot of
shirts really quickly, one right after another
that all look the same. So it's sort of a simple
process once you get started. And making multiples of
something is very, very easy. So we are gonna look at
making a silk screen, a non-permanent version. So if I wanted to make 10 of this shirt, this method would be great. But if I wanted a silk
screen over the long term, I wanted to make 1,000
shirts over a long term, you would actually use
iron-on instead of vinyl. And I'll talk a little bit about that. But just to let you know that this is more like a temporary
method for a couple uses. I could definitely make 10 of these shirts all the same color, then rinse my screen and
maybe make another project for a couple times. But the vinyl will eventually start to come off that adhesive. But it's definitely a great way to make multiples of something
really, really quickly. So let's take a look at the
process for silk screening and the materials you'll need. So for this project, you're
gonna need your vinyl. So you'll want some Cricut permanent vinyl to add to your screen. You'll need the screen itself. So I'm using this Speedball screen. I'll link to everything I'm
using in the description below. You also need some screen printing ink, and I have a variety of
colors to choose from. You'll also want some sort of squeegee to drag your ink across your surface. And then we're gonna experiment
on a variety of surfaces. So I have a shirt, a
towel, a zipper pouch, some canvas banners. We're just gonna kind of
experiment on different surfaces and see how well this method works. So let's get started and
make the screen itself. So you want to cut your adhesive vinyl just like you would adhesive
vinyl for any other project, except two things. You'll wanna mirror your design. So similar to the way you do for iron-on, but we're gonna do it on adhesive. And then you see how I moved
my design sort of to the middle and left quite a bit of room
around the outside edge? I do like to do that as well. We are gonna use some
masking tape as well. But leaving this extra area, I feel like, gives you room to add your tape on. Now, this is the way you're
gonna weed your design. So you wanna weed away everywhere that you want the ink to go. I made a mistake the first one I cut, and I weeded it this way, which is the way you would usually weed if you were gonna do adhesive vinyl. You would weed away and
have something to transfer to your surface. This is incorrect. So I wanted to show this
as a way not to do it. This is the correct way that
you want to weed your design. Now, you can use any design with this. This is one I picked. I'll leave a link for the
SVG file for this one below. But you can literally use
any design you would like. So now we're gonna turn this screen over. So this part of the screen that has the lip is the top. So we want our screen on the bottom. So the bottom is where it has this ridge around the outside edge. These screens are actually replaceable if you ever need to replace them. And when mine came, it was a little loose, and so I used just a
weeding tool or something and just kinda got down in there and pressed on the rubber
piece that's around here, and it tightened the screen up. So you want this really, really tight. So you might wanna look for that, especially if you order
from Amazon or something. So then we'll wanna use
a piece of transfer tape across this to transfer our design. So I'm using some transfer
tape from Vinyl Ease. And so I think I'm gonna
remove it from the mat first. And then we'll just put this
transfer tape over the top. So the transfer tape makes sure that we get all these
little bits and pieces in the correct location. So we'll just put a piece
of transfer tape right over the top of our design. And I'm just gonna cut this excess away. We can actually just use one
of these squeegees that we have for the ink itself. Just make sure it's down on there. You can also use a Cricut
scraper, not a big deal. Whatever you have is fine. So we're gonna burnish that on both sides. Then we're gonna peel
back this backing paper. We can transfer this design to our screen. So we are just going to
put it onto the screen, about in the center. And then you can flip that over. You can see our design from the front and that it looks correct. And we can kind of burnish this down, making sure everything is
stuck down really well. So I'm burnishing over that vinyl to ensure I have it stuck to the screen before I remove my transfer tape. And you can definitely also
use your Cricut scraper here. And we're just gonna flip this over. And we're gonna attempt to
remove this transfer tape. So what should happen is that your vinyl should be on your screen, and the transfer tape
should just peel back. So then once everything's on our screen, we wanna tape off these areas. So we don't want our
ink to get in this area and get on our shirt
or something like that. So I'm just going to use
regular masking tape, and we're just going to apply it to where it touches the frame and touches the vinyl. On this side, for instance, I'll need to apply a second row of tape to cover up the entire area. And then I'm gonna flip this over, and I'm gonna burnish
that tape down as well. And now my screen is ready
for some screen printing. So here I've protected my work surface with some disposable paper. I have just a tea towel down on the paper, and then I can add my screen. So we're gonna wanna make sure
that the screen is straight with the object we're screen printing and that it's in the center. So I'm gonna take a few
minutes and locate that. So one trick for that is
to kind of mark the center. So we are going to fold this towel over. I'm just gonna use an iron. And that marks the center. And then I wanna kinda mark the location. So I want my design approximately there. I can just press that. And now I should be able to see this location mark through my screen. So when I add my screen, I can
see the center right there. So I know that the center
needs to be about right there, and it needs to be down just
a little bit on that line. And I can actually see
that horizontal line, so I can locate that as well. And that looks about right. So now my screen is approximately
correct on my towel. And now I have the Speedball ink. And we can just... We're just gonna kinda
dab that across the top, and then we're gonna squeegee it down. So I have a squeegee that is
wide enough for my design. If you don't, you can pull
down a couple different times with a smaller version. So we are just going to dab
some ink across the top. So you basically want enough
to go into this entire screen, but not a ton of excess. And it's kind of trial and error, but the benefits of screen printing are that you can do multiples of a design over and over and over
again really quickly, so you will get used to
how much ink you need. I'm just using a Popsicle stick (laughs) to actually put this on there. I just find anything disposable, and that way I don't
have to worry about it. This ink is water-based, though, so you can absolutely just
clean these tools in the sink. And then we're just gonna kinda have it at a 45-degree angle and
pull down in one motion, while pressing down. And I can see that I got
fairly good coverage. You can lift it up and go from
the top again if you need to, but you may not need it. And then we just wanna kinda make sure that there isn't any excess. Our excess is down here. There's probably too much
excess, but that's okay. And then we can just lift the screen. And there is our design on a tea towel. All right, so now you
will wanna let this dry. I like to let mine dry for 24 hours. And then we're gonna heat set this ink. So put a pressing cloth over
the top and heat it for, on regular iron, medium-high, three to five minutes on both sides, and then this will be heat set, and it's 100% permanent,
ready for the laundry, will not come out. It is ink, definitely very permanent. So I'm gonna play with a few more surfaces and see what else I can create. All right, I talked a little
bit about the clean-up and the fact that this is water-based. So one of benefits of screen
printing is all this excess, we can just drop back into the container. Use that on the next project so not a problem at all. So I kinda like to get
all the excess off first, and then we can just
spray this out with water. Now, if you were doing
multiple black pieces, so if I wanted to use the
black over and over again, you really wouldn't have
to clean the screen. You could just keep going,
adding black to the top, and squeegeeing it down. But I actually wanna experiment with some different colors for the video, so I'm actually gonna
clean up all of my stuff. I'm gonna throw those Popsicle
sticks away that I've used, but I'm gonna clean up
the rest of this stuff, just with some water, just to
make sure the screen is clean, all that black ink is out of there, and then we will be ready to actually screen
print a different color. And I can actually just... I just have a wipe, and I'm
gonna wipe away the excess. And then I'm gonna take this to the sink and just kinda spray through the screen, just to make sure nothing is
stuck in those screen pieces, and we'll be ready for the next one. So here's my screen 100% clean. I just took it to the kitchen, and just the sprayer
with the kitchen sink, I just turned it down super
low and just sprayed it, and all that ink just
came out of the screen. And then I dried it really well. So we want it really really dry. Let's say that I only wanna
do this succulent or a plant, and I wanna put it on these flags. So I want to not have the words transfer. So we can actually just
use the same screen. We're just gonna block off
the parts we don't want. Again, just masking tape. Burnish those down. And then we can put our banner flag down. Again, I protected my work
surface with some paper. And we can add that succulent now. Again, if I want to make sure that I'm in the center and all that, I need to be able to see
that through my screen. So the trick is to mark kinda with an iron so I can see through the screen where I want my design to be. And now when I put that
on, I can see that line, and then I can kinda locate
where I want that to be. And then I'm gonna use green this time. So changing my color to green. And we're gonna repeat the same process. So we're gonna add a little
bit of ink at the top. This time, I can use the smaller squeegee. And we're just gonna pull
this down over the top. And then can just remove that flag, and there's our design on the flag. So I'm gonna repeat for the rest of these and make a cute little plant banner. And because I'm gonna use
green over and over again, I don't have to clean the screen. I can just keep repeating. All right, time for another tip. So this still has the ink on it, right? And I'm ready for my next flag, but I'm not gonna be able to see marks because the ink is still on there. So you'll flip it over to the back. I've marked the flag with my iron, so I can tell that that
center needs to be there. And I can tell that it's straight. And then you could actually tape it here, or you could just kind
of flip it and hold it. But I'll tape it just to illustrate. So I would tape just a little bit to kinda hold it in place. Flip that over. And we can squeegee down
with some additional ink. And then of course you'll
have to remove the tape to get this off the back. And there's a perfect little banner flag. So I'll keep repeating the same process and make the rest of my flags. All right, so I actually made
a bunch of flags. (laughs) I was just kind of experimenting. And then I went to clean my screen, and a few of these pieces
weren't stuck really great and were coming up, so I'm just gonna remove
the screen and start over. So that's the beauty of
using that adhesive vinyl, is that we can just remove this, and we can just add a whole new screen, or we could add the same design, however we wanted to do that. So I'm gonna remove this, allow it to dry, and then add a new screen. So I will say if you
wanted a permanent screen, so you wanted to use it over
and over and over again, make tons and tons of shirts, you would buy a bunch of these, and you would use iron-on
or heat transfer vinyl to add your design to the screen. Then it would be permanent. So you would just iron it
on just like we've done here to the back, and then you
could screen print tons and tons and tons of things. But I just kinda wanted to make a few projects to experiment. So I'm using the adhesive vinyl, and you can see it comes off super easy when you're ready to change it out. So I'm gonna add another design, and it'll make a shirt
and a bag or something with the other design. All right, a few more tips and tricks. So when doing shirts, you'll wanna be sure to put
something inside of your shirt. So I've got some paper inside of there so it doesn't bleed through
to the back of the shirt. The other thing is you
can mix custom colors. So I wanted a gray for this. I didn't want just black. So I used black and white, and I just mixed them in a small cup, and then I was able to
screen print using that ink. Now, you can't save that
ink in a jar or anything, so mix as little as possible, just enough to do the
projects you're working on, and then screen print
just like we were doing. So I'll actually set this shirt aside. And I did want to just run
through something really quick. So if you're having trouble
finding that center line through your shirt, go ahead and use your iron
and make yourself an X. And then you can use your Popsicle sticks or just about anything. And you can run those along those lines. So make sure this one's straight. Make sure this one's up and down. Then these you can see
through your silk screen. Lay your silk screen down, get it located, then just kinda hinge it up. Move the sticks. Lay it back down. So that's another way that you can get that silk screen centered on whatever project you're working on. So I'm gonna continue on. I'm gonna make one more project with maybe this silk screen
or maybe another one. So you can see it kind of here. Now, I did wanna note something. So even though I'm getting
all my ink out of this screen and then put another one on here, the ink does kind of
stain the screen itself. So you can kinda see
the green and the black from the first two projects I did. That's okay. As long as you don't have any ink in there and you've rinsed it all
out, the staining is okay. It's not gonna bleed through
to your next project. So I think I'll make one more project, and then we'll talk about our results. Now let's talk about doing two colors. I did a different screen on this. I did wanna note that these
come in a variety of sizes. I just kinda put this one in the center, and I just put a little bit
of tape around the outside 'cause I was just doing a zipper pouch, and I had this one out. So a zipper pouch, I did several tries on
this before I got it right, so I wanted to give some
tips and tricks for that. First of all, if you move your design down as far as you can, you can avoid... The problem is that this
zipper area raises the screen up off of a fabric, and you get some presses
that aren't complete, so the ink doesn't go all the way through. And then you put your screen down. And I kinda rest on it with
my arm and pressed down and then pressed down with the squeegee as I went across with the ink. And this one is still
wet, so I won't lay on it. But just to note that when you
have something with a zipper or something like folds or whatever, it will hold that screen up, so you may need to do a little bit there. And then to get the two colors, all I did was do the green first, or it doesn't matter, the yellow first. And once I was done with the green, I didn't even move the screen. I just held it down, put a
tape over the green portion, and then I did the yellow. So if that makes sense. Or you can do it vice versa. But I just left that in
place and did the yellow, and that way I didn't have to
move it and line it back up. If you were to move it, then you would need to
line that green back up with the green that's already on the pouch before you would do the yellow. So that's two colors if you wanna do two colors, one project, and if you wanna do
something that has a zipper or other big folds that
holds it up off of, that holds the screen
up off of the surface, that's kind of my tips
and tricks for doing that. All right, so now this shirt is dry. Let it dry for like 24 hours. I did wanna point out on this design, I did this design for a reason. It has super, super small details. There's little dots and
lines within the letters. And I wanted to show that
screen printing could be used even with those fine
and super fine details, maybe some of your designs. And now that this is dried, I mentioned that we need to heat set it. So I have my shirt actually
on top of a EasyPress Mat, but just your ironing board would work. It's fine. And then you need to lay
something over the top. So I'm gonna use... This is actually butcher paper,
and it's what I used inside. There was actually no
bleeding through on there, so I just thought I'd use it over the top. You could use a pressing
cloth or whatever. And then I have just my
regular household iron. And you wanna just continually move it, three to five minutes on the front, three to five minutes on the back. And this design's permanent. It's ready to wear. It's ready to run through the laundry. It is completely permanent. And I will say... I would say that you can feel this less than maybe certain brands of HTV. It probably depends on the brand. So if you're going for
that, the feel of it, it's probably kind of similar
to heat transfer vinyl, maybe a little bit less. And then I'll continue to
heat set that in a minute. You can also stretch this. So it does stretch with the fabric. But when you stretch it
apart, you can see... I can see the pink in between
the ink as I stretch it. So that's nothing to note
on something stretchy. But otherwise, looks amazing. It's ready to wear. Give screen printing a try. All right, so it's super simple, right? I showed you my shirt. I made tons... I made a ton of these little banner flags. I was experimenting with location and just the pressure I would apply and the amount of ink
or something like that. So if you have some scrap fabric, that's a great way to kinda
get used to silk screening, is just to use something
like this, a small design, and just go over and
over and over it again, just to get the feel
for the silk screening. And then after that, you will
definitely be better at it. And then of course, the first project I made was
this tea towel, which I loved. And then I used the same silk screen, just the smaller portion of it, when I was making my banner flags. And then we talked about, of
course, silk screening a shirt and, of course, mixing those inks. And then I did the project where I used the two different colors, and we talked about things, odd things, like the zipper pouch
or something like that. Now, all these are fabric surfaces. There are definitely techniques
to silk screen on paper, silk screen on wood. You can do so much with
the same technique. So tell me in the comment
section, first of all, have any questions about
anything we've covered, please tell me. The second thing, tell me
if there's anything else you wanna see me silk screen, any other further techniques
you'd like to see. I might do a few more videos
on silk screening itself if you're totally interested in exploring that with
your Cricut machine. If you liked this video, gave you something else
new to get addicted to, please give us a thumbs up. Remember, all those links that I talked about are
in the description below. You might have to click that Show More to get all those links, but
they should all be there. If there's not, if you're
missing one, you can't find one, you can definitely always drop a comment, and I will get that for you. If you haven't already, head
on over to our YouTube channel. Hit that Subscribe button first of all. Scroll back, watch past videos. We have tons of ideas
with your Cricut machine, some more things to get addicted to, and I'm sure you're gonna love it. Plus, we have Cricut videos every week, and you don't wanna miss any of those. So thank y'all so much for joining me, and I'll see you next week, bye bye.
