This week while shopping, I had my hubby take me to JoAnn’s in the city (I don’t drive in the city) so that I could pick up some card and scrapbooking supplies. As it turns out, JoAnn’s always has great sales and they had their Yudu on sale for $99.00. We talked about it, changed our minds several times and in the end, decided we would wait and get it another time. Then as we were checking out, they had one up front and my husband changed his mind again. We left the store, the proud owners of a Yudu Machine.
I was personally a little disappointed to realize there was only one transparency and one emulsion sheet in the box. Needless to say, in my experiments, I ruined them both in a little bit of time. I was excited to begin a new crafting adventure and my husband and I had already made plans for several things we planned to do with the machine. T-shirts for the next family reunion, t-shirts for the cruise, and a multitude of other things as well. Since I ruined the only supplies I had, I now had to do some looking for ordering supplies. In the process, I found a great video of a crafter who used vinyl instead of emulsion and a transparency. I’m not one to get left behind, so I had to at least try it to see if what she did really worked. Besides, it would give me the opportunity to experiment with the machine and get to know how it works for when I do get the right supplies ordered. So, today, I took some vinyl and cut out some shapes with my cricut. There is no rhyme or reason to the shapes or the sizes I cut I just chose something so I could play. The thought of “this is my only screen” keep passing through my mind. What if I mess this one up and then, I will have to wait even longer so I can order screens. What the heck, I decided I was going to try it anyways.
Once my vinyl (actually I was using cheap contact paper I bought at Walmart) was cut, I carefully adhered it to the back side of the screen. When we checked it out, it had some air bubbles in it, so I used the squeegee and ran it across it several times. I then used some packing tape to tape up the edges and the portion of the screen that was not covered by the vinyl.
I have a stash of old bed sheets and pillowcases that need to be tossed, but I thought they would make great rags, so they were still in the linen closet. Well, now they are making great materials for me to practice my screen printing techniques.
I was amazed at how quick and easy the flooding of the screen was, and how smooth the ink went on to the material. I am now even more excited to get some more supplies and some ink in other colors. The plans my hubby and I made seem very easy to complete.
I have included a few pictures of the process just to document my own progress.
So yes, in this case, the sale was too good to pass up, although, at one point, I was quite worried we had made a huge mistake.
Thanks for reading, if you have thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, please share them.
It is nothing fancy at this point, but it is a place to start, right?
