Screen Printing With My Yudu, Cricut Expression and Vinyl
After I got the kids to bed I was able to try and work with the Yudu. My first few attempts were washed down the sink. The first time I did not have the screen wet enough. The second time it was to wet. The third time I said however ever it turns out, I am going to print it.
I am almost embarrassed to show you this but I worked hard on this and I can’t believe that it did not turn out. It is a black t-shirt and hot pink paint. It was a pre made Yudu design. The first ink pass was very very faded, the second pass was still faded but some parts became blotched.
It does look horrible. Like a bleached t-shirt or something. It was a t-shirt that I made for myself. It took me about 4 hours or so to get to this point. I was very frustrated.
I decided to try the vinyl method that I posted about earlier. I am so in love with this method. I made a t-shirt for my niece (Bubbles).
I used my Gypsy and created the vinyl design and it took about 2 seconds. I used a 12×12 piece of black vinyl. The vinyl cut perfect on my cricut. I forgot to take a picture of the before, so here is a picture of the after. I had just finished printing the t-shirt. This is the vinyl adhered to the inner side of the screen.
I left the vinly on my cricut mat. I removed the parts that I wanted to be inked from the design. I then took a large sheet of contact paper and covered the entire vinyl cut. I had about 1 inch all the way around the design of extra contact paper. I used a brayer and rolled over the contact paper to help it adhere to the vinyl. I flipped the entire design over and pealed off the backing of the vinyl. Once it was pealed off I took it over to my Yudu machine and decided where I wanted it on my screen and adhered it. I pealed the corner of the contact paper slowly and removed it from the vinyl. I basically adhered the vinyl to the mesh screen like it was my wall. I covered the parts of the mesh screen still exposed with tape. Screen printed the t-shirt. With one ink pass, this is how it turned out.
The letter are from the Lyrical Letters cricut cartridge and the heart is from the Indie cricut cartridge. Clean up was a snap. I washed the screen with warm water. Pealed off the tape and vinyl. Wiped it down again and put the screen in the Yudu machine to dry. From start to finish with the vinyl method it was about 30 minutes. I love how this shirt turned out. I have some hot-fix rhinestones that I am going to add to it. I know that my niece will love it. I would rather use vinly then the emulsion. I am not going to give up on emulsion though, we are going to learn how to use the liquid stuff. I share more info about that on a later post.
****update***
I was able to finally get the emulsion to work. I wet the screen with a spray bottle. Applied the emulsion and the used the squeegee to get all the air bubbles out. **per a wonderful suggestion from someone on the cricut message board** Flip the screen over and wipe the emulsion with a wet sponge to get it totally wet and get the air bubbles out. It took 2 drying cycles to get totaly dry but it worked perfect. Thank you “14across” from the cricut message board for your help.
Here is a picture of the shirt that I made for my daughter using emulsion. I cut the pop star out from the Hannah Montana Cartridge. I cut in out in black vinyl and it adhered perfectly to the glass and stayed in place to properly burn the into the emulsion. The guitar was a pre-made stencil that you can purchase for the Yudu.






I have had the Yudu for about 4 months and have yet to try it because of the stories I have heard about the emulsion being so tricky. Cricut to the rescue, I’ll be trying it this week.
Keep trying!!! Looks like you found a better way to do the shirts and the one that you did for your niece is really cute!
Very nice!! I had troubles the first couple of times with the emulsion too. It has to be wet enough when it goes on the screen, and perfectly dry when you wash off the extra emulsion after it’s burned…. it is temperamental. I think I got it down, but now I’m excited to try the speedy vinyl method
Thank you, I am glad I am not the only one who had trouble with it. I was about ready to throw in the towel.
Great shirts!!!
Once you figure out the emulsion is SO FUN to play with. I made a video (http://bit.ly/m5cQb) to help people with the emulsion. Andrea’s right that you need to make the screen wet, the emulsion has to become one with the screen. Then it must be 100& dry before you remove the protective cover or else you’ll rip it.
Happy Yudu’ing!!
http://erinbassett.com
Love what you did! I am going to get my Yudo this Friday at JoAnns they have them
for the 3 days at $189.99! Plus I have JoAnns Creative Cash of $200 to buy it.
I have been on the internet for days researching emulsion vs. vinyl and it seems
vinyl wins out as far as time to make and cost of $$ for emulsion.
Thanks for sharing your t-shirts!
You need to make a video on how you put the vinyl on the yudu screen it would be greatly appreciated.
Hey everyone i just got my yudu about 3 days ago and i already printed out my first shirt which i will be posting an image some time soon. I was reading the blog and i notice someone mention about the vinyl method . Can someone explain to me how that works and if possible a video would be great . Thanks so much . HAPPY HOLIDAYS