How to print your own graphic T-shirts like this at home for less than 5$
You are going to need:
- acrylic paint in your desires colours (if you want to put light colours on dark fabric pick up white paint too to use as an underpainting so your colours show up)
- paper sheet
- masking tape
- exacto knife
- makeup sponge you don't mind ruining
- printer (optional)
This is made using my trusty method of stenciling. First you need to pick up a pattern - for biggest chance of success pick something high-contrast and with as many details as you think you'll be able to cut out by hand - if in doubt go simpler so that there's higher chance you finish the project.
I picked the danse macabre skeletons (imagine the background is black)
If you have a printer put your image in an editing progam (if you don't have one downloaded use canva, its online and free) and invert the colours to use less ink.
If you don't have a printer I suggest taping a piece of paper to your monitor and tracing by hand, or you could even do it by putting the picture on your phone zoomed in and tracing it part by part moving the paper as you move the picture underneath. Of course you can also just design your own print, add stuff, change em, anything.
Then what you do is you cover your paper in a layer of masking tape from each side - this is to give it structure and pervent marrying of the paper to the fabric.
Then you get an exacto knife and slowly cut out everything you want to print. Don't rush this step or you'll risk ruining your stencil. Make sure to leave structural supports for your stencil, you can either incorporate them into the design or just leave out stripes that you can fill in later. You can check how your stencil will look like by bringing it twoards a light source, to track if you like the direction the project is heading.
This particular stencil took me 2 hours I believe (i did it last year I don't remember)
Then you masking tape the stencil to your shirt, pant, bag, whatever honestly, this will work on any flat fabric and make sure to put a barrier inside so the paint doesn't bleed to the other side - it shouldn't do that but it can so why not pervent it.
And now using acrylic paint you dab on the paint thin layer by thin layer - the goal is to have not a lot of paint on your sponge so it doesn't bleed but to work it into the fabric really hard so your graphic is durable and doesn't crack. You don't need fabric paint or to mix in any medium since you're working the plastic so deep into the fibers. For white paint i usually do 4-5 coats, for dark paints on light fabric usually two is enough, but it's up to you entirely.
And now just let it dry for a while and it's ready! It's safe to wear probably within 10 minutes, just check if it's not sticky. Best thing is that the stencil is reusable so you can make more, you can do it in different colours, different garments, you can do just about anything. Have fun!
Washing care is how you would take care of any graphic tee - wash inside out on the "hand washing" setting in a washing machine and let air dry and also use minimal detergent - If this is too much to ask just turn it inside out when putting it in the wash, that's where most protection comes from.
This whole thing took me maybe 3 hours total. The shirt I used I thrifted for maybe 2$ and the materials I bought once and have been using for years, so the total cost of putting this print on this shirt to me was nearly 0$.
