Silkscreening HOW TO: Handmade Invitations

I like to make things. And I really adore sending letters in the mail. So it's no surprise that I take great pride in making invitations for my annual birthday celebration and mailing them out to all of my lovely friends. The fine print on this years edition, which is a silk screened print for each guest, reads "come visit (poolside)" with the relevant time and place.

Below are some photographs of the silk screening process. I used Diazo Speedball Photo Emulsion to make the screen. It's super easy, you just apply this light sensitive paint to a piece of raw silk that is stretched onto your frame & let it dry overnight. Next you print the design from your computer (black and white only) onto a transparency. You then lay the transparency on top of the dried photo sensitive screen and place a bulb on top (12"-16" away) for 20 minutes. After rinsing it out with the garden hose, you have your screen ready for printing!

This is a photo of me placing the colorful invite down on the "registration marks" before screening (In case you're wondering what's behind the blue paper, I used an old pottery barn catalog instead of newspaper to protect my table, I know, kind of random).

Apply paint and use squeegee.

Wa la, hand printed invites on perforated postcard paper. Way easier to distribute than cutting each by hand! Below is my mess of materials for addressing each postcard. More than half have already been mailed! I hope everyone likes them!