your screen-printing kit

These are the essential items you’ll need to start screen-printing.

1. PENCIL Always use a pencil on your stencil paper. Never use a pen – it will bleed onto your fabric and make you sad.

2. STENCIL PAPER Stencil paper (also called ‘easy cut’ or ‘Yupo’ paper) is a thin, strong plastic that has no grain. It’s easy to cut and lasts forever.

3. LIGHT BOX A light box is a box with a neon tube inside and a clear surface. The illuminated surface makes it easy to transfer your design onto stencil paper. These are sold at art and photography stores. You can also use a window for tracing your designs onto stencil paper.

4. SCALPEL You’ll need one of these to cut all the ine detail in your stencils.

5. CUTTING MAT Use a self-healing mat, and one that’s A2 size or bigger will make life easier.

6. SCREEN An A4 screen will get you started, but you can ind them in many sizes. For fabric, make sure your mesh is 43T. For paper, you’ll want 100T. 43T means that the mesh will allow more ink through and 100T means less ink.

7. TAPES You’ll need to use tape on your screen. Packing tape is used for the ‘ink well’ (see next page), and masking tape will attach the stencil.

8. SQUEEGEE This pushes the ink through the screen. Make sure the rubber is quite lexible and choose one that suits the size of your screen.

9. INK This is the fun part! There are so many types of ink. Save any clean plastic containers and use them for mixing and storing your inks.

10. SPATULA Have a few on hand to mix inks and to apply the ink to your screen.

11. HAIR DRYER Use a hair dryer to dry your ink – this is useful when printing several layers.