As a mom of two preschoolers, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in my house has little to do with green beer and pubs, and a lot more to do with dressing up in green clothing and baking shamrock cookies. But if you’re a crafty mom like me, you do more than just don an emerald t-shirt to honor St. Patrick. No, we go above and beyond in our holiday garb – we print our own, custom shamrock shirts (by hand), using a simple screen printing process.
If you’re up for the crafting challenge, gather a few supplies together, and try your hand at printing your own shamrock shirts for this coming St. Patrick’s Day (or, essentially, with any image for any holiday, event or every-day wear).
Required craft materials:
– framed silkscreen (available in craft stores)
– squeegee
– green fabric ink
– 100% cotton t-shirt, pre-washed
– iron
– newspaper
– spoon
– pencil
– utility or crafting knife
– construction paper
How to print your shamrock shirt:
1. Begin by preparing a workspace. Cover a printing area with newspapers, and prepare a cutting surface that won’t get damaged by your knife.
2. On construction paper, draw a shamrock shape (however big you want the shamrock to be on your shirt). To simplify, sketch a circle with a stem, then reduce the circle into leaves. Using your utility knife, cut out the shamrock, leaving the stencil intact.
3. Stuff the inside of your shirt with a flat, smooth piece of newspaper. Place your shamrock stencil directly over the area which you want it to print on. Position scrap paper around the edges of your stencil, to block ink from transferring during the printing process to undesired areas.
4. Place the framed silkscreen directly on top of the stencil, screen down.
5. Spoon a line of green fabric ink onto the screen, near your stencil cutout. Press down firmly on the squeegee and pull the ink across the screen – over your shamrock cutout – repeatedly. This transfers the ink onto your shirt.
6. Set aside the squeegee, and carefully remove – then wash – the screen immediately under running water in order to keep the ink from drying and ruining the screen.
7. Gently lift and discard all paper pieces from your shirt, revealing the shamrock underneath. Move your shamrock shirt somewhere out of the way, and let it dry for the recommended amount of time instructed on the ink container.
8. When dry, iron over your shamrock design with a hot iron for three minutes to heat-set the ink. After this step, your printed shamrock shirt is ready to be worn for St. Patrick’s Day, as well as washed and dried with other laundry.
If you would like to print more than one shirt with your shamrock stencil, simply remove the paper stencil from your printed shirt, then set it aside to dry before using again. For this option, use a heavier paper than construction paper, such as cardstock.
More from this contributor:
– 8 St. Patrick’s Day activities for art class
– Recipe: decadent chocolate brownies for St. Patrick’s Day
– How to screen print an American flag t-shirt