I’ve been sitting on this post for months, but I figure it’s time to let her rip and share my thoughts with you.

I picked up a Boho Screen Printing Kit by Craft Smart from my local Michaels for $14.99 (prices are subject to change, and this is not a sponsored post). The kit includes one silk screen with four patterns and a plastic scraper.

After seeing other creatives use silk screens on their clay projects, I knew I had to try this, too. Also, I grew up around a screen printing machine—my parents had one when I was little. So, I knew a bit about how the process works, and I was excited to see what I could achieve with a silk screen of my own.

I chose the boho kit because the delicate patterns could work for multiple projects, and I already have plant-inspired embossing tools.

So, I prepped a clay slab, picked a metallic white acrylic paint tube from my Mont Marte Metallic set, and got to work.

I followed the instructions, scraping the paint into the pattern from different directions, lifted the screen, and immediately submerged it in water so the paint wouldn’t clog the pattern.

Unfortunately, the pattern barely showed up on the clay.

I washed the screen, waited for it to dry, then tried again.

I thought the paint was too dense, and perhaps I should’ve chosen a darker colour, so I tried tapping charcoal-coloured pigment onto the screen with a paintbrush. The powder would go through the silk fine, right?

Though it fared slightly better, some parts of the pattern still cut off, and I realised gluey residue blocked the pigment along parts of the silk, which was why the paint hadn’t permeated. Also, my screen is forever stained after the pigment.

I washed the screen and hopped online to research solutions while it dried. Quite a few creatives suggested trying a heavy-bodied paint with screen printing, so I picked a white artist-grade acrylic paint and tried again. (My clay looked a bit rough by this time, matching my level of frustration! 🤣)

Only one of the four patterns worked with the heavy paint. The pattern I’d used for the rest of this demonstration looked just as it had with the Mont Marte acrylics, and the pattern with the zig-zags and vertical lines didn’t work at all. The gluey residue completely covers the silk.

The bottom line. Much as I hate giving negative reviews, I don’t think this product is worth it. Maybe I was just unlucky and purchased a lemon, but it broke my confidence in this line of screen printing products, so I won’t waste money on finding out.

Have you tried screen printing? Have any tips or advice? Let’s chat in the comments!

Until next time,

Yolandie.