Dressing My Wobbly Bits

Shopping for a wedding dress when you’re a big girl sucks. Most dress boutique carry little to no dress in extended sizes and the dress they do carry seem to be identical copies of the same strapless modified A-line dress with ruching and if their fancy a sprinkle of beading. No offense to the brides with ruched, strapless, modified A dress. There’s a reason why these dress are so popular they fit and flatter everyone but this is not my idea of a dream gown.

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Given the choice between dress shopping and a root canal I would choose a root canal every time. Fortunately the 1 one thing I fear more than dress shopping is walking down the aisle in my skivvies so as our wedding day grew closer though I knew that it was do or die time and I had face my fear and find a dress. After some research I was able to locate 2 bridal boutiques that carried samples in plus sizes. Both happened to be located in the orange county area within a few miles from each other so bridesmaid SD and I decided to make a day of it and hit up both.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures or dresses to share with you from our day out which goes to show you how underwhelmed I was with our shopping experience. While both Mon Amie Bridal and Ferndales bridal had a large selection of dress to choose from the dress themselves were either just ok or so far over my budget that it wouldn’t matter if it was in a size I could try on because there was no way I could afford it.

I also found myself getting slightly annoyed with the fact that the stores were set up in a way that the plus size gowns were segregated away from all of the “regular” dresses. This practice should have really surprised me though because isn’t this the same industry that has brought us such TV magic as Say Yes to the Dress Big Bliss because you know big girls can’t be featured shopping for dress amongst their petite counterparts.

I understand that separating the large dresses makes shopping the racks easier and more comfortable for some brides but for me having to walk through racks and racks of beautiful sample size gowns to reach the couple of racks of plus size dresses in the back of the store left me feeling more self-conscious than shopping amongst the so called “normal sized” brides ever would.

Needless to say I did not buy a dress that day and actually to this day I still don’t have one. After talking to my mom and detailing our day of shopping she asked why I hadn’t considering having my dress made. This was a total forehead slapping moment for me! My mom made my prom dress in High School, it fit perfectly and flattered me in a way that no dress in the stores ever did back then so why wouldn’t I go the same route for one the most memorable dress of my life? Decision made my mom and I will be working with a seamstress friend of hers to design and construct my wedding dress it will be 100% custom fit and flatter me in a way no other dress off the rack will and I won’t have to stick to the big girl section of the store to get it!

*image courtesy of myshoeconnection.com

Yay!

One of the very first projects to be added to my DIY to-do list was these Yay! flags originally posted on Wedding Bee by OG bee blogger Mrs. Lollipop.

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Looks simple enough right? A little bit of muslin, some wood dowels and bam instant yay! flag! Yea, that didn’t happen. For this girl simple little Yay! flags involve 7 yards of muslin, 2 mesh screens, 3 different inks, a sewing machine, some dowels and lots of glitter and glue.Oh but aren’t they pretty? In my opinion they are totally worth it. If you think so too keep reading for the step by step instructions on how to make your own.

The Supplies

-Muslin

-Screen printing supplies or iron on transfer paper and printer*

-dress maker sheers or rotary cutter

-yard stick

-self healing mat

-wood dowels

-wood bead

Wood glue

-glitter

-Martha Stewart decoupage glue

-optional for double sided flags

-quilting fabric*

-sewing machine*

-contrasting thread*

*not pictured

First take your muslin, sheers/rotary, mat and ruler and cut your fabric down to size. Ours came out to be about 8x5 inches but depending on the text for you’re the flag yours may be smaller or larger. In order to make printing easier for us we chose to cut a rectangle large enough for 4 flags first than after our text and pattern was on our fabric trim it down to our final size.

With your fabric cut screen print your image on using the method out lined in this post. If you don’t want to screen print your text you can follow the instructions listed on this website for iron-on transfers.

If you choose to make your flags double sided like ours you’ll need to sew both pieces together prior to attaching them to your dowel. This can become pretty repetitive; to reduce some of your work I recommend you only stitch the 3 sides that will be visible when your flag is complete. For some crazy reason I chose to top stitch ours which I strongly discourage. I seriously doubt our guest will notice the extra detail and although it only took about 20 min to top stitch 80 flags after sewing turning and pressing 80 flags I was kind of over it.

It’s now time to assembling your sticks. Take your wood dowel and bead and dry fit them together. If you find that it’s difficult to join them together take a small exacto knife and carefully whittle away the excess wood on the inside your bead.

Once your bead and dowel fit comfortably dip the end of your dowel into your wood glue and join both pieces.

Repeat until done and allow to dry overnight.

Once your dowels are dry take your decoupage glue and apply a generous amount of glue to the bead on top of your dowel. Sprinkle your glitter onto your newly applied glue and allow to dry overnight. Once completely dry apply a second coat of glue to your dowel. This will seal in your glitter and prevent it from getting all over your guests.

We’re almost done! All that’s left is to attach your flag to your dowel with your decoupage glue. Take your dowel and cover the 1/3 with glue. With your dowel in hand take your flag and gently role edge around the coated dowel and hold for 30 seconds.

If you find that the 2 layers of fabric won’t adhere to your dowel simply take your glue and run a thin layer of glue onto your fabric before joining your flag to the dowel. Allow to let dry and stand back and admire your handy work!

Screenprinting a Primer- Part 3

Hi Guys! I apologize for the lateness of this post; I’ve been deep in wedding DIY and planning and haven’t had a second to sit down and write a blog post in a couple of days. Today is my last installment of my DIY screen-printing tutorial and I hope I’ve inspired some of you to set up your own at home screen printing workspace. This post is a hodge-podge of helpful hints cost and resources to hopefully make your introduction into the work of traditional screen printing a bit easier. First up is a cost breakdown!

Some of the everyday craft items such as scissors and printer are not included in the cost since you would have to purchase them separately regardless of if you purchased a YUDU or went the traditional screen printing route.

Cost breakdown-

-Hinge Clamps-$22

· Aluminum or wood screen-$15

-Fee for burned artwork- $10

· Squeegee large enough to fully cover your art work-$15

· Water based ink-$5 for 4oz bottle $10 for $16oz

· Tape-$5

· Pallet adhesive/ temporary spray adhesive-$5

· Ink Fixer (for textiles) - $5.00

· Transparencies/ velum-$19 for 50 sheets

· Opaque black marker-$4

Total-$110

At a total of approximately $110 bucks traditional screen printing will run you about 1/3 of the cost of a Yudu machine and when comparing supply cost traditional screen printing wins out every time. Take for example a new YUDU 110 mesh screen will run you about 18 bucks on amazon about 3 dollars more than a traditional screen.

Helpful Hints-

Screen printing is an art form and like all art forms there is a trial and error period before you truly become comfortable with the medium and each new project will bring with it a new set of challenges that you will have to work through to be able to get a perfect print. Listed below are some helpful tips that I’ve picked up along the way that will hopefully help you with your printing and eliminate some of your beginner frustrations.

-Always buy extra printing material than needed. I like to give myself a ¼ cushion to work with to account for print error and to give me some wiggle room to be able to pick and choose my best prints.

-In order to prevent ink drying in your screen when working with water based ink make sure your working in a cool place if that is not an option ink extenders are available to retard the drying time.

- One of the biggest factors in getting a good print is your squeegee speed and pressure. Experiment with your squeegee speed and pressure to get the best print.

-If while printing you notice your printing material sticking to the mesh feel free to spray your work surface with a light mist of temporary adhesive. Let dry for a couple of minutes, your prints should now stay put during printing.

-work with a buddy! J and I have a system down were one of us prints while the other hands the printer new printing material and removes completed prints for drying. This helps reduce the amount of time printing and will reduce the risk of your ink drying in your screen if your using water based inks.

Additional reading and resources!

For those of you interested in trying out screening printing there’s a lot of resources available online and in your local bookstore. Some of my favorite resources are listed below but I encourage you to do your own Google search and take a look what the World Wide Web has to offer you!

-Printing By Hand by Lena Corwin is the amazing book that first introduced me to the world of screen printing. The book is beautifully photographed and Lena instructions are super simple to follow.

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-If you’re the type who learns better by seeing this video from Etsy is for you!

- http://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com is a great online source for supplies if you’re unable to find any local suppliers. They also offer a screen burning service and there website is chock full of instructional videos.

- http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ more geared towards entrepreneurs in the business t-shirt forums offers great tips and advice from people in the business.

That’s all I got folks! I hope you guys have been inspired to get your DIY butts in gear!

Screenprinting a Primer-Part 2

Its the second installment of my crash course in screen printing! As a refresher here’s the list of supplies needed-

At this point you should have your screen burned and ready for printing and your clamps are set up on a stable work place next up will be taping up your screen to prepare it for ink and inserting it into your clamps.

Take your roll of tape and scissors and cut a piece approximately the size of the inside of your screen mesh side down. With tape in hand stretch your tape so it begins to curl and create a 90 degree angle at this point you want to lay your tape down with ½ on the mesh and the other on the aluminum frame. This creates a seal between the ink and frame and prevents any ink form seep out and onto your work space.

You are now ready to insert your screen into the clamps. Make sure that your clamps are super tight and your screen is unable to shift. If you’re worried about damaging your screen with the clamps you can take a small piece of cardboard and sandwich it between the upper clamp and your frame. With your screen securely in the clamps take your stir stick and tape it onto your work surface directly below the free end of your screen. This will give you the offset needed for you to get a clean print.

With your screen Taped and secured in your clamps you can now take your print material and your art work and register it to your screen. To do this take your original art work and tape it down onto a piece of whatever material you choose to print on. Lay your material with your artwork now taped to it and place directly below your screen. With the screen down slowly move it back and forth until the artwork lines up directly with the image above.

Your print is now registered. Lift your screen but do not move your print material! This is where those expired gift cards come into play, take a strip of tape and lay it over the entire card leave one long end uncovered. Take your card line it up the corner of your print material tape down. Do this for the other corner so you create a 90 degree angle. You may now remove your artwork.

Your screen is now ready to be inked. I prefer using Versatex screen printing inks. They are a water based ink which allows them to air dry without any heat curing and can be made wash fast by using a fixer. Traditional water base inks require you to heat set textiles prior to washing. Take your ink and lay a generous bead of ink extending the full length of your art work.

You are now ready to start printing! Take your with both hand squeegee and place it directly behind the bead of ink you laid down at a 45 degree angle. With slight even pressure slide your squeegee down your screen, stop once you’ve reached the end of your print.

With the squeegee in the same position slide your squeegee back to its original position. You’ve just made your first print!

Lift your screen and take a peak but do not move it your print. If you notice that your print is a bit blotchy lay the screen down and run your squeegee over it a second time. Since you did not shift the print below you should have no registration problems.

Repeat these steps until your done with all your prints admire at the sea of drying prints that now surround you! For cleanup you may use a natural bristle brush and mild dish soap. Spray the screen with a water house and gently scrub until all your ink has been washed out. If you notice some staining on your mesh don’t fret some inks will stain your mesh but as long as you are able to see through the mesh while it is held up to the light your screen should be fine to use again.

Want more? Up stay tuned for the final installment of the series which will include helpful hints, resources and a cost breakdown!

Screenprinting a Primer-Part 1

Today is day one of my crash course in traditional screen printing! This series of post is for all the brides/crafters out there that have ever considered investing in a Gocco or YUDU but could never justify the cost. Traditional screen printing may seem intimidating but with a few tools you’ll be able to produce prints similar to if not better in quality to those produced on a Gocco or YUDU system. Oh and the cost is about a 3^rd of that associated with a YUDU!

For starters please don’t be intimidated by the list of tools below. All of the tools listed can be purchased online or through your local art or screen print supply shop and none with the exception of the laser printer are over 25 bucks.

The Tools-

· Hinge Clamps

· Aluminum or wood screen burned with your image

· Squeegee large enough to fully cover your art work

· Water based ink

· Tape

· Pallet adhesive/ temporary spray adhesive

· Ink Fixer (for textiles)

· Scissors*

· Transparencies/ velum*

· Opaque black marker*

· Laser Printer/Copier

· Paint stir stick*

· Voided gift card (random I know I’ll explain!)*

*not pictured

The first step in creating your art work you can either choose to hand draw your art work onto your transparencies/velum using an opaque black marker deco paint pens work best or printing it directly onto your velum or transparencies using a laser printer. It’s really important that you print your art work using a laser printer and not an Ink Jet printer. Inkjets do not produce the opacity need in your art work to achieve a clean burn. Our art work pictured below is printed on a tabloid sized velum paper, personally I prefer to use velum at about 50 cents a sheet its more economical that transparencies and is available in tabloid size for larger prints.

With your art work is ready it’s time to head down to your local art or screen supply store to buy your screen and have it burned. If you’re in the LA area I strongly recommend you check out Screen Depot on Main Street in downtown they caterer to the industry but have great prices and their screens are always perfectly burned. The cost of burning your screen generally depends on the amount of art pieces being burned on one screen and the size of your screen and can range from 10-15 bucks depending on the shop you go to. This may seem like a steep price to pay for 1 screen but remember when compared to gocco and YUDU screens that have a high margin of error it’s a pretty small price to pay for a perfectly burned screen.

When picking out a screen the 2 most important things to consider are screen size and mesh count. Mesh count is just a fancy way to refer to how many strings per inch are present on your screen mesh the higher the count the less ink is allowed to pass through your screen and the finer the detail you can achieve in your prints. Your screen size is dependent on the size of art work you plan to work with you want to make sure that any screen you purchase has at least 1 inch of space of clearance on all 4 sides of your art work. Typically we stick to a 17x21 125 mesh screen it’s a nice in between mesh count that allows for fine work but allows me to use thicker more opaque ink, a screen this size will typically cost about 18 bucks and can be reused many many times.

Next up is setting up your print station, for this you will need a pair of Hinge Clamps. Hinge clamps are the piece of equipment that allows you to raise and lower your screen without losing registration on your print and cost anywhere from 20-25 bucks. Now it is possible to pull a print without the use of hinge clamps but the process can get messy and has a higher margin of error so it’s advisable that you invest in some clamps. Your clamps will need to attached to a work bench or table if your unwilling to permanently screw in your clamps to a solid piece of furniture you can also use a large piece of plywood of MDF as long as its stable and roughly the same size as the screen you plan to use.

With your screen burned and your clamps installed you’re ready to start printing! Tomorrow I’ll go over how to prep your screen for printing, what inks to use and the proper way to use a squeegee!