Welcome back to the craft room and today’s Screen Print A Two Color Canvas Bag post. With the need to bring our own bags shopping, I decided to up my game a little bit, especially when shopping for craft supplies. I found a fantastic little canvas tote bag at Michael’s the other day and just had to have it. The bag is 13″ x 14″ x 3″ at the bottom, the perfect size when shopping for a few craft supplies. Of course, being a crafty person, the bag needed some embellishments. Because the bag is 100% cotton, I decided to screen print a pretty sunflower on it with Speedball Fabric ink. I made a YouTube video showing the process that I will link here. You can also follow along here on the blog if you prefer.
The Sunflower Image
When I need an image, my go to location is Creative Fabrica. They have everything you could possibly want or need to create a project. For today’s canvas bag screen print project, they came through for me once again. This Sunflower SVG was perfect for this project.
I uploaded the image into Cricut Design Space to make a few adjustments to it beginning with the size. To fill the majority of the bag I made it 10.1″ x 10.5″. To be able to use it for a screen print stencil, I also added a box around the entire floral layer that measured 11.5″ x 11.5″. My initial goal was to include my web address under the flower. That added an additional 1.5″ to the height of one stencil, so I had to use the 12″ x 24″ Cricut cutting mat. Unfortunately, I made a critical error that I didn’t notice until much later; I did not mirror my image before cutting. When using permanent adhesive vinyl for screen printing, especially with letters and numbers, you must mirror your design otherwise the letters will be backwards.
Because I am making a layered two-color design, I wanted to make sure the the images were going to line up perfectly on the bag. To help with this, I added two 0.5″ squares to the tops of each layer. Not only did this help with alignment, but it also helped me know where the top of the second stencil was.
When combining screen printing with craft vinyl there are a few things you will need. The vinyl that seems to work the best for this process is Oracle 651 permanent vinyl. It seems wrong to put a permanent item onto the screen, but it peels off so easily at the end of the project. Because it’s just a stencil, the color doesn’t matter. I would suggest however, to use a color that you don’t want to use for other projects. Along with the vinyl, you will need transfer tape, I prefer the Medium Tack Transfer Tape from 143vinyl. You also need a weeding tool and scraper to adhere the vinyl to the screen.
Weeding The Stencils
Weeding the vinyl took a little bit of time with all the intricate cuts. To help the process along I used my trusty Pin Pen Weeding tool by 143Vinyl. I am so glad I bought this tool. With the tiny point, it is so much easier to work in small spaces. Because it is a needle tip, there is a chance it could bend if precautions aren’t taken. It is suggested to use at a 45 degree angle to the vinyl. That, in combination with the glare on the white vinyl, made for an interesting weeding experience.
Screen Printing With Speedball Fabric Inks
This project is my third venture into the art of Screen Printing. The first project, a St. Patrick’s Day shirt for my son, can be seen here: World’s Tallest Leprechaun. The second project was not documented, but it was another t-shirt. The main supplies needed for today’s project include a 12″ x 16″ screen print frame, squeegee, Black Speedball Fabric Ink, Opaque Gold Speedball Fabric Ink, painter’s tape and a spoon or palette knife to stir and add ink to the project.
After adding the stencil to the back of the frame, you will need to cover any exposed mesh with painters tape. If you skip this step, there is a chance you could get ink on the project in the wrong place. Because the ink is water based, it can be washed out if that happens, but why take the chance in the first place? The image below shows the frame after the tape has been applied.
The top seam of my Make Marker Canvas Bag is rather thick, so I placed my Cricut EasyPress Mat inside with a piece of parchment paper on top of it. This gave me a smooth surface to work with. After you have lined up the frame onto your project, it is time to start the screen printing process.
Begin by adding a good amount of ink to the top of the image. You certainly don’t want to add a massive amount of ink, but you need enough to cover the entire screen. What ever excess ink is left can be put back into the jar and used again. The squeegee I have is two sided, fabric and acrylic. Without moving the screen, flood the image with your ink and then remove the excess in a long pull across the screen. Only go in one direction, and try not to make too many passes.
Screen Printed Mistake
As you can see in the image below, I did not follow my own advice. Because I had never worked with canvas before, I wanted to make sure I covered my entire image with ink. Unfortunately, I made too many passes and pushed the ink under the stencil in a few places. This is very evident in the center of the flower, but you can also see it in the lower portion of the design. A few of the outlines are a bit thicker than they should be. You can however, see the little squares in the upper corners of the bags. Because we placed tape down we will be able to use those marks to help us line up the next frame.
Before we can move onto to the next color we need to make sure this layer of ink is dry. You have a few options, let it air dry, help it dry with a hair dryer or heat gun. I did a little of both for today’s project. When the ink was dry to the touch, I continued with the next layer. I lined up the screen with the squares in the upper corners as well as with the inner petals. Because I had “over processed” my outline image, I took a few too many precautions and ended up missing the bottom of two petals, as you can see in the image below.
My initial thought to fix this mistake; attempt to line the screen up again and try another pull. However, what I did instead was much easier and worked out great. I filled in the missing ink with a small paint brush and ink that had not yet been cleaned up. It worked perfectly, but did leave a bit more of a shine to the areas of the flower that I fixed.
Finishing The Two Color Canvas Bag
To completely finish all Speedball fabric ink projects, you need to let the image dry for a minimum of 24 hours. After that, it needs to be heat set to become fully permanent. I heat set my canvas bag with my HTVRont Auto Heat Press set to 320 degrees for 40 seconds. Again, because the top seam is so thick with the handles, I left my EasyPress Mat inside the bag to get full contact with the top heat plate.
I am so happy with how this bag turned out! It’s certainly not perfect, but I did learn a few very important lessons:
- Always Mirror the Design before cutting.
- Do not over pull a design
- Do not underpull a design
- Love what you get and don’t cry if it isn’t perfect
Thank you so much for joining me for today’s Screen Print A Two Color Canvas Bag post. I hope you had as much fun following along as I did making the project. Join me again next week for my next crafty adventure and until then, have a fantastic week!
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