Last Saturday I ran a YUDU workshop. Here are pictures from the event. I will be holding three events in October, and two each in November and December. They are Holiday themed, so join me for the fun and leave with gifts or decorations for your home! Follow this Link to the calendar of events >>

This is the YUDU 101 class:

Here we are discussing the various parts of the YUDU.

In the photo below, I am arranging cut paper on the light table. The screen with emulsion on it gets placed over this, and then the image is burned into the screen. The bats are cut on the Cricut Expression with the Happy Hauntings cartridge.

Once the screen is exposed to light~which hardens the light-sensitive emulsion~it is time to wash out the screen in the sink. This basic laundry sink is a perfect size (below).

When the screen is completely dry it’s time to tape off the areas of the screen we don’t want to print (anything that appears white~that is the bare screen).

We only want to print one bat. Below, you can see that everything is taped off except what we need. Put the screen into the YUDU machine and get ready to print.

We printed napkins for an upcoming Halloween Party. The photo below shows placement under the screen.

Squirt out a good amount of ink~enough to run a thick blanket of ink over the image (this is called “flooding the screen.” The next swipe is with enough pressure to push the ink through and onto the napkin.

In the photo below, students try their hands at screen printing. It is a viscerally exciting process. So Fun!

Be sure to join me at my upcoming workshops~Screen Printing is one of the most fun crafty things you can do, and you’ll leave with some cool stuff!

I am psyched to post this journal/book I made with the Yudu screen printer and the YourStory book binding machine. The cover has a pocket for me to collect things to journal about, or pictures to include. I plan to fill the pages with all the photos of the fun we had this summer on our trip to Colorado.

I added a pocket to the front by simply folding over some fabric and gluing it to the front (and wrapping it to the inside made it a breeze). The clouds and bike are Yudu screen printed. The grass is a paint pen—easy! This makes me so happy, I want to make more!

Every time I screen print I use up the last little bits of ink on scraps of paper and fabric. These bits and pieces are super handy when I am looking to put my signature on some project. One day last week I was covering buttons with fabric and turned to my box of scraps to see what was there. I was so delighted with the buttons I wanted to put them all together! Follow this link to a tutorial on how to make fabric covered buttons.

I just love the YUDU. The ink colors are beautiful and non-toxic. The set up is so easy I can break it out and have it all cleaned up in under 3 hours. (That includes designing, burning screens, and going to town on anything within arm’s reach.)

Since I like to do things differently, my annual screen print for our 4th of July Party is a spin on the concept of “Freedom.” In this case~as all kids feel in the summer~bikes are the ticket to freedom. I’m an adult and I still feel that way!

I love to experiment. I think I get that from my dad who on his days off would spend hours figuring out how to make everything in the house work better. Or when there was nothing to fix, he would sit down with graph paper and draw out schematics for some machine that would change how the world worked…if it ever made it to production that is. In any case, Dad had a lot of fun and that rubbed off on me.

Now I am no engineer, but I sure like to see what happens when I try something new. For instance, last weekend I got out the Yudu and challenged myself to print patterns on yards of fabric. I love to invent patterns and the Yudu offered me the opportunity to produce something tangible from which I can sew something fabulous.

I decided to start out small and print a design I could make into an easy pillow cover. Here it is all finished and sitting on my patio chair, making an otherwise boring piece of furniture cute. There’s Luna the Chicken in the background pecking away at the Dichondra. Below are pictures of the process. Follow this link to a full How To on Printing Patterns on the Yudu.

Now that the first set is done, I let it dry and shifted the fabric to the left to repeat the process.