Handmade Wedding: Silkscreening the Invitations

July 21, 2007 at 10:01 am | In Crafts, Handmade Wedding |

My last post was about the process of designing my wedding invitations. In this post, I’ll talk about the execution.

As you can see, the invitations are designed sort of like a pamphlet. When unfolded, the darker teal vine borders are on one side of the paper, and text is printed on the other side, in the center.

1) The paper: I bought all my paper from Paper Source. There are cheaper options out there, but I love the colors Paper Source offers, and the fact that I could go to the brick aned mortar store in Japan Town and see it all for myself. I bought thick cover paper for the invitations in Pool and their gorgeous deep Red, as well as some plain text paper in pool, which I used for the reply cards. I’ll talk about the reply cards in a later post. Last, I bought some circular stickers in Pool, which I used to affix the red band in the back.

2) The text: My original plan was to silkscreen both sides, but I quickly realized that the screen I had tried to reclaim to print the text was not in any shape to print such fine lines. So I ended up taking the paper to a print shop and having the text laser printed on one side. This made my life much easier, especially because I now only had to do one pass printing, which means less time and less opportunities for mistakes. Fine lines are much more challenging than bold graphics, and any blurring would make the text illegible.

3) The silkscreening supplies: Silkscreening takes some work, but with a little rigging and imagination, you can create your own DIY set up. Here’s what you need:

• One silkscreen, available at most art supplies
• One silkscreen station (basically some wood with hinges that you can attach the screen to. You can find kits that contain both the station and screen, and attach hinges to more screens in the future.)
• Photo emulsion and sensitizer
• Inkjet transparency film
• A piece of glass or plexiglass, about the size of your screen. I took a piece of glass from an old thrift store frame.
• One shop light with clamp on the end, available at any hardware store.
• One 500 watt flood bulb, available at a photography store
• One red or amber photo safelight, available at a photography store
• Inks
• A squeegee
• A drop cloth to protect your work area.
• Screen filler (optional, for touch-ups)

You’ll also need a dark room to expose your screens. A bathroom without windows is a good choice, or a large closet. My bathroom has a window, so I expose at night, with a dark towel over the window.

4) Transfer the design: There are a couple ways to do this. You can either print you design (in pure black and white halftone) directly onto your inkjet transparency, or you can trace it onto a regular transparency using ink and a brush, or a rapidograph pen. I’ve done both, and the inkjet method is much much faster, but inkjet transparencies cost considerably more than non-printer friendly ones.

5) Prep the screen: Screw the red or amber safelight into a lamp or the shoplight in the darkroom you’ll be using. Mix the photo emulsion with the sensitizer and use the squeegee to spread a thin, even coating on both sides. Make sure it is coated completely and let the screen dry in a pitch black area, like a closet. This can take 1-2 hours.

6) Burn the screen: In your darkroom, with the safelight on, place your design on top of your screen. Place the glass over the transparency to hold it in place. Now position your shoplight 12-18 inches above the screen. I do this by clamping it onto the back of a chair or something. Make sure that there is something dark under your screen: you don’t want anything bright or reflective to bounce the light back upward! Now screw in the flood light. These are extremely delicate and you should not touch them directly, because the oil from your fingers can heat up on the bulb and cause it to explode. Now expose your screen under the floodlight for about 15 minutes.

7) Rinse the screen: Wash your screen in the sink, and make sure to get out any emulsion in the lines of your design. You can use a soft bristle brush for this, but be gentle. A spray nozzle is really helpful here. Now your screen is no longer light-sensitive, and you can let it dry. Once it’s dry, hold it to the light and check for any pinholes of light that come through. You can cover these with tape, or even better, use a paintbrush and some screen filler to touch them up. This works beautifully.

8) Print your design: Now you have your stencil! Lay down your drop cloth to protect the work area. Attach the screen to your hinged station, and get some test paper. Mix your ink to get the right color, and use a plastic spoon to put a generous dollop on the top of your screen. Spread it around to the full width of your design. Put some test paper under the screen, and holding the squeegee at about a 45 degree angle, firmly pull the ink down the length of the screen. Carefully pull up the screen. It usually takes a few test prints to get it right, and you can also use these tests to figure out the best placement of the paper to get your design where you want it. Once you have it placed, use some masking tape to mark the edges of the paper on the print station, so you have guides for the next one.

Voila! You can make many many copies this way. Don’t they look great?

In the next post: assembling and finishing my invitations.

See more posts about about handcrafting my wedding!

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