I coordinate activities for teens at my temple. Over the summer, someone, possibly me, said, "why don't we silk screen our own t-shirts?" This seemed like an awesome idea at the time. Combining the two important attributes of ignorance and grit, I sallied forth. How hard could it be? First, I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Then I ran to Ace Hardware and bought some 1x2s. Then I engaged the services of my teenage son Benjamin, who had taken a woodshop class as a freshman in high school, to make silk screen frames. You can see him doing that above. Look at that miter job! (And they say kids never learning anything useful in high school!). Then I bought a bunch of supplies on Amazon and from a silk screen store in Nevada, including some sheer curtains, squeegees and emulsion. The most important thing I bought was emulsion remover, as I had to redo my screens several times. This is because it took me a while to figure everything out. This is where the "grit" attribute came in handy. I also engaged the services of my husband Steven, who while trained as a physician, knows his way around a computer. He helped me with the graphics that were ultimately transferred to the silk screens. In the end, I don't know how many steps it was. But I think the journey was worth it. Stay tuned for a future post on how the t-shirts turned out.
