getting into screen printing!

while working on this past shop update, i was thinking about what other things i can work on. from the start, i wanted to sell t-shirts but held it off since it was out of my budget to get it printed professionally. one day, i was on tik tok and saw this independent artist printing her own merch. i was so amazed because i always thought you needed professional equipment to screen print.

reasons why i decided to screen print myself 

it is much cheaper than getting it done by a service

although i had to invest quite a lot of monies into getting started, it is way cheaper in the long run. before buying the machine and supplies, i contacted about 10 different services around the county to see what the average rates were. from there, i felt like it was best to print at home to save myself from the expensive costs. 

i have more control in my work

if i were to get my shirts done somewhere else, i would need to reach a certain MOQ. by printing the shirts myself, i am able to make as little as i want. also, i can feel less pressured when designing since i can print a limited amount if that design isn't successful.

it is just really fun!

lately, i have been feeling unmotivated with my repeating quarantine routine. screen printing added a new thing to do and it feels nice to get into a different hobby! listening to twice, the coco ost, and the frozen ost while printing was amazing. 

i failed a lot.  

i failed so many times. it was extremely frustrating. i assumed that screen printing was easy as how the tik toks made it out to be but it turned out to be a lot more difficult. 

in short, i had to do the emulsion process 6 times until getting it right. from there, i wasted so many shirts when printing. even though i felt so defeated, i forced myself to persist. with trial & error, i learned a lot about why the mistakes happened in the first place so i could prevent it next time. 

i ruined my OMOCAT shirt, my beloved cooking mama yellow apron, and shawn wasabi shirt. it is very sad :,0000

i would like to thank ella (@ellawaddella on instagram) for giving me golden advice. out of all the great advice, the best one yet was to "just remember to not get too ambitious on the first project or else you'll end up hating screen printing." for this shop update, i was planning to do 2 different designs but felt like it was too ambitious with the deadline. it is best to start small and progress at your own pace. no need to rush things or else you will waste a lot of materials and sanity.

things i wished i knew earlier 

make sure to get the right supplies 

i wasted quite a bit of monies on the wrong sized squeegees, scoopers, and frames. at first, i assumed that it would be fine to use a smaller scooper on a frame as long as i did not leave any spots missing. as a result, i put too much emulsion on the frame since i did too many passes in order to cover the area of the mesh.

buying supplies at an actual screen printing store >>>> buying supplies on amazon/online 

i first bought all my supplies on amazon. it was very pricey for low to mediocre quality items. stuff at the printing store was half the price of what it would be on amazon. going to the printing store was a very pleasant experience. the employees are very knowledgeable on the topic and i was able to ask them many questions. 

if you made it to the end, comment your favorite show/movie!! currently, i have been binge watching a lot of anime and my fave atm would be kimi ni todoke or ouran!!

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