Summer 2012 in Review...Post #4 Screen Printing for a Cause

My first opportunity to use my screen printing skills for a great cause came toward the beginning of this summer while doing early moring boot camp with my friends from First Anna. We were training hard with our fearless leaders Crystal and Andrea (who are awesome by the way!) to do a 5K run that would raise money for a very special missionary. This missionary, Mandi, is a friend of theirs who sold everything she owned and followed the Lord's leading to move to Cambodia and share the Gospel and the Love of Jesus.

 

So the first project was creating t-shirts to wear for our run.

 

 

 

To learn more about the ministry and work that Mandi is doing please visit her website http://www.mandisilvers.com or follow her on facebook http://facebook.com/mandi.silvers1.

 

 

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My second screen printing for a cause project came just recently when I had the opportunity to design a t-shirt to promote a very exciting event.... our fall 2012 Women's Conference. I'm so thrilled to be a part of this conference where there will be some amazing speakers, fellowship and worship.

 

*Side Note: I will be leading a painting class for the women at the conference, yay! 

Check out more information on this event

 

http://www.firstanna.org/10399/event/event_id/311874/Womens-Conference

 

(and pre-register if you are in the area and would like to attend!)

Making Stuff for this Weekend

I'm so excited to be doing a booth with my friend Sandy this weekend at the Arts & Crafts fair in Farmersville! We have both been crazy busy with "making stuff" and getting ready for the event.

Some things I've been working on are:

Art prints of my photography on wood blocks. They can hang from the decorative wire embellishments or sit on their own on a table.

Glass pendants that can be used as necklace charms or keychains.

Precious tiny domino pendants.

Lots of shoe clips for warm weather accessorizing.

New! Vintage style screen printed shirts. I LOVE these wonderful soft, flattering shirts! I found them on a recent shopping trip and bought as many as I could to print on. I may wind up keeping one of each for myself, LOL! :)

Anyway, for those of you who are in the area, come out and see us at the"Farmers & Fleas Market" this Saturday May 5, 2012 from 9-3. More info here  http://www.farmersvilletx.com/index.jsp

Sneak Peak at the things I'm selling......

Creative Late Nights and a Whole LOT of Caffeine!

Ok, I promise myself that starting today I will disconnect my IV drip of iced coffee and start getting more than 3 hours of sleep a night.... I promise.

But it has been so much fun. I have worked the last week like a mad woman.

I have immersed myslef in screenprinting, sewing and painting and have loved every exhausting minute of it.

Here are a few snapshots of projects that have graced the countertops of my studio, my kitchen, my living room....well, pretty much everywhere.

 I was also very excited to receive my promotional postcards in the mail from vistaprint and have already sent many of them out (be looking for them they have a discount sticker for my etsy shop!)

P.S. If you are not on my mailing list and you would like to be send me an e-mail with your name and mailing address to jackiepatton@excite.com

 I made clothes and accessories for homecoming week, screenprinted shirts, onesies, pillows, sketchbooks and canvases.

I sewed and painted and worked with leather and lace (ooh la,la) 

The only thing is..... all that caffiene and non-sleeping did kinda lead to a teeny-tiny mistake or two.

Do you notice anything different in these two pictures?

Yeah, I didn't notice till Jeremy pointed it out but I did at least go back and fix it before I posted the apron for sale on etsy so people wouldn't think it said something like

"So many Artsy & Crafy (or accidentally think it said crappy) things to Make so little Time" 

pretty funny, it was 1am when Jeremy came in from his football game and pointed out my mistake and I was so hyped up on iced coffee and delerious I couldn't stop laughing.

Love & Creative wishes to all!

P.S. Don't forget to stop by http://www.artfultrinkets.etsy.com/ to see all the new stuff I have listed.

Screenprinting

This week I was hired to print some t-shirts for a church group. It was fun to get out my screenprinting stuff and get to work.

Here are some of my supplies, and a couple of designs I created a while back... thought I might test them out while I was at it. :)

  It's been so great to have this workspace that Jeremy created for me in the garage. I have space to set up my screen, apply the emulsion, set up my exposure lamp and then do my clean-up in the sink beside the counter. Thanks babe!

 Exposure times for the screen can be tricky and I'm still working on getting my more detailed designs to come out crisp and clear..... lots of trial and error. But that's ok, at least the church logo came out perfect this time. The other stuff can wait, it was just for fun anyway. But I will work on it again soon..... maybe print some stuff for my etsy shop.

Wash out the screen to reveal the printing areas.... so cool to see the design come through.

 Once my printing area was set up, I brought over the dry screen and taped around the edges and covered parts I didn't need to get any ink on. Then I carefully lined up the logo on the t-shirts top left corner and used the squeegee to spread the ink and press it through the screen onto the shirt.

  Carefully raise the screen. Yes! Success. Let dry and heat set with an iron.

  Fourteen shirts complete... delivered.... and possibly more to do next week. Yay!

 Now, I'm totally inspired to screenprint. Need more screens, hmmmm.... I think I can build some, maybe I'll talk to my hubby about getting some supplies for that next week. ;)