How To: Screen print holiday snowflake gift wrap with Etsy

This week, Etsy How-Tuesday presents Kari aka ikyoto and Stella aka lookcloselypress of The {NewNew} York Team. Today we're going to learn how to screenprint our own snowflake gift wrap for the holidays. Kari and Stella remind us that recycling paper bags is a great source for materials for this kind of project.

Materials Needed:

* Silk Screen
* Squeegee
* Paper Bags / Junk Mail / Card Stock
* Scissors
* Ink Spreader / Spatula / Stirring Stick
* Iron
* Ironing Board
* A flat protected surface (table with construction paper works just fine)

Steps for Making Screenprinted Gift Wrap:

* Cut up your bags until they lay flat.
* Iron the bags with the iron on a cotton setting with some steam.
* Lay one bag on a flat protected surface (you can tape the edges down if you like).
o Place the screen over the bag.
o Have a friend hold the screen firmly in place.
o Use an ink spreader, spatula, or stirring stick to put some ink evenly along one edge of the screen.
o Using a squeegee firmly press down and pull the ink across the design holding the squeegee at a 45º angle.
o Carefully lift the screen, while holding the paper down to separate the two.
o Repeat swiftly until you notice the ink starting to gum in the screen at which point: rinse!

Search wonderhowto for silkscreen videos to learn how to silkscreen. Check out this link for more info:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/how-tuesday-snowflake-gift-wrap-with-the-newnew-team-2964/