Screen Printing T-shirt Designs with Silhouette Cameo Cut Vinyl Stencils

I make a lot of stuff  and I never get around to documenting it. Here are some of them coming at you...in posting dribbles.  

My husband and some friends from work and I went to the Treasures of Ancient Egypt: Sunken Cities exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art* in January (2021) and one of the objects (Statue of Taweret) just called out to me..."make me into a t-shirt..." So, for our 8th wedding anniversary (bronze) I made my husband that shirt! 

I opened the photo I took of Taweret in photoshop and simplified the design so I could then send it through my cameo silhouette craft machine and cut it out in vinyl to make a screen print template. 

reverse of screen printing frame with vinyl stencil applied. 

photo inspiration and final screen print of Taweret

You might notice that I made the figure of Taweret slightly plumper than in the photograph. I thought it would make her more comical (as if it weren't already) but I might revisit her original figure again in the future. We'll see. My husband liked her so much he said I could sell these. 

I used a bronze metallic acrylic paint but the metallic sheen doesn't show as well in photographs. 

This was the first time I have tried screen-printing using cut vinyl and it worked really well.

My husband graduated from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. Sadly no longer open. 

For this one I used silver metallic acrylic paint for "Brooks" and titanium white acrylic paint for "Institute". 

Don't mind his expression. He really does love it. And don't worry, he has more than one plaid shirt. 

Do you watch TV? Of course you do. Do you like Sci Fi? We do. Have you seen The  Expanse? It's very good. I highly recommend it. 

If you watch the show you  might recognize this emblem. This was my first attempt at two color screen printing with the same vinyl template technique. The red ink did not fully cover the white, but it makes it look purposefully worn out. I love it! What do we call that? A Happy Accident? Thanks Bob. 

I don't have a picture of husband wearing it, but I swear he loves it.  He likes everything I make for him....or he's a very good liar.  

And last (for now) but definitely not least....first, a long explanation....

This one was a labor of love. I had been sketching the idea for this shirt on and off for a while. A long while....

Finally I came up with the above layout and basic design. Final sketch in red ink. (you never know when or where inspiration hits, or what type of writing implement is around.) I took it into photoshop and removed the color so I could visualize it better.  I also wanted...oh, wait. Maybe I should tell you what is going on here? 

See, my husband loves Pink Floyd, and their original line up included a fella named Syd Barrett. Syd had great talent and creativity, but he also had mental health problems, which eventually led to him leaving the band. He has, to this day, left an indelible mark on the other members of Pink Floyd, as well as their fans. 

The band wrote a song inspired by Syd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. My design, a diamond incorporating a very stylized song title also included the name, SYD. I don't know if it occurred to the band but I'm staking my claim that "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", broken down to it's major theme "Shine You Diamond", (because he was a diamond before he spiraled) spells SYD, which you can see I have spelled out on the face of the diamond. I wanted this shirt to celebrate not only the song, but also Syd Barrett, and of course, Pink Floyd.  

Whew. that's a lot of thinking for a t-shirt design....

Now, most of the modern world knows this album cover for Pink Floyd's album, Dark Side of the Moon: 

I wanted to incorporate this prism design into my diamond. And below is my final design seen on the computer and cut from vinyl on my Silhouette cutting machine. 

I am not pleased with colors or placement of the rays, and I also want to print it again on a black shirt, which would be more fitting, but blue was all I had at the time. I will rework this in the future...

Also, just for reference, I used all acrylic paints by Liquitex and FolkArt paints. I have since invested in some Speedball screen printing paints. 

Come back for more dribbles of art and stuff.

♥

Thank you for visiting!

*sorry if you wanted to visit this exhibit. We saw it on the last weekend it was in town. 

3D Printed Dickens Village Accessories

JC has been printing little accessory pieces for our Dept. 56 Dickens Christmas Village.

3D printed fountain

3D printed dogs and cat next to my watch for scale

3d printed dogs and cats for Dickens Village 

I can't wait to paint them. Although, they are so tiny, and I am so fidgety fingers. I'll do my best. The standing dog will be painted to look like our dog, Mollie, a beautiful brindle.

Thanks for visiting!

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{All 3D printing design files found on Thingiverse.com}

More 3D Printing and Halloween Paper Crafts

I've been busy. JC keeps printing, and I keep painting and paper crafting. 

3D printed spider:

Nightmare Before Christmas Bats, Jack Skellington, and Sally cut on my Silhouette Cameo. 

My plan is to make a mobile with them:

So much stuff to finish painting here; 3D Groot, Dalek sitting on a 3D column, a water tower, a bunny, coffins and mummies. Yes, all this stuff is 3D printed, except for the paper bats, which are painted cardstock. 

USS Enterprise, Next Generation model:

whew.

Thanks for visiting!

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[All 3D print designs found on thingiverse.com]

3D Printed and Painted Millennium Falcon

I've been moving things around and creating a painting/crafting nook for myself. I just painted a whole bunch of things yesterday and wanted to share one today.

Yesterday, every time I finished painting something, I would send a picture to Jason. He wrote back, "Good job. Now do the Millennium Falcon." and then I would send another picture, and the same thing, "Cool! Do the Millennium Falcon. NOW." ha. 

All right. All right! ha. 

Here it is before painting↓

3D digital file of Millennium Falcon found on Thingiverse

First paint layer↓

Finished!↓

The person who created this 3D design took artistic license with the Millennium Falcon, so I had to also in the painting details.

I'll have more painted 3D objects to show you soon. 

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Thanks for visiting!

3D Printed Trophy Wife

Today is my 4th Wedding Anniversary. I wasn't going to post anything about it, but it's 3D printing related...so I must. ha.  

If you follow my blog you might remember the first post I did on the topic of 3D printing. I talked about buying my husband, Jason, a 3D printer for Christmas after hearing, all too often, "If I had a 3D printer, I could print one for you" at every turn.

Well, since we are both crafty, we always make Birthday and Anniversary cards for each other.  I made one with a picture of him pointing to a #1 Wife trophy and saying that same phrase, "If I had a 3D Printer, I could make one for you". On the inside I said, "So What's stopping you? If I knew how, I'd make one for you, my #1 Husband."  

Don't you know, I just came home to find this on the 3D printer. ↓

3D printed trophy digital file from Thingiverse.com user  tc_fea

#1 Wife Trophy 2.75" tall. 

The guy is pretty creative, and what quick turnaround! I was so surprised and thrilled.

And just like that, I'm a trophy wife. ha. Happy 4th Anniversary to us, and a great big thank you to my sweet Jason. I am so lucky to have found you. (Okay. I might be getting a bit too sappy, even for blogger. 🤣)

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Thank you for visiting! 

Art Is Therapy: Acrylic Handpainted Mini Wooden Bowls

A few years ago we received some cute little wooden bowls in our Christmas stockings. I didn't know at the time, but they are for condiments when you are cooking. I just use them around the house to hold little trinkets, and I always had the idea in the back of my mind to paint them. 

When we started 3D printing after Christmas time and I was painting Jason's prints, I found that I couldn't put the paint brushes down. I was possessed. I was looking around the house, thinking, "What can I paint? What can I paint?" So, I found my little bowls. 

You can see Mollie inspecting them. I think she approves. ↓

I had so much fun painting them. I got completely lost in the process. It was so relaxing to randomly paint shapes and designs, and mix colors.    

I left a painted area on the bottom for my initials. ↓

One of them hasn't been painted yet because, at the time, I forgot about it, as it stays in my bedroom and holds my rings at night. 

Since it worked out that I have a bowl with a red background and another with blue, then it will be only logical (and fun) to paint the third one with a yellow background. After they are all three painted, then I will put polycrylic on them to protect the surface. 

I will post a little update when they are all painted and sealed. 

🎨

Thanks for visiting. 

3D Printed Stonehenge, Death Star, Electronic Arts and The Police.

So, yesterday, as you might have guessed, (or at least my one and only loyal follower guessed. hi Debra!) we were printing a 3D Stonehenge. ↓

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user Spacerobot775

I would kind of consider this print questionable, because the base turned out so thin and flimsy, even though Jason printed it at 200%. I can't even imagine how it would print much smaller than this. It is already so tiny at 200%. ↓

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user Spacerobot775

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user Spacerobot775

And another thing, it is so hairy. That's hard to clean up after the filament dries and those little leftover hairs harden.

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user Spacerobot775

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user Spacerobot775

But, I'll still give painting a go, and I'm sure it will be cute. 

Here are a couple things that I actually painted for those who think I am a complete procrastinator. 😏

The Death Star. ↓

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user embeddedjunkie 

This was printed in pieces, with two halves and a center ring, and it was glued together after I painted it. 

3D Death Star digital file by Thingiverse user embeddedjunkie

By the way, have you seen the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One? We saw it, and I thought it was pretty good. Nowhere near as good as the original trilogy, which were movie perfection, but better than the prequel trilogy, in my humble opinion. 

Back to 3D prints. If you know the video game company, Electronic Arts, you might recall their early days logo: ↓

And here is their current logo, which you might be more familiar with today: ↓

Jason's first 3D design created with the free 3D design program, Tinkercad was an homage to Electronic Arts' original logo with the cube, sphere and cone. Though, when I saw it, I thought of something completely different. So, and I kind of commandeered it, and painted it as an homage to my favorite band, The Police: ↓

Notice the cube, sphere, and cone in the album cover below, and the screenshot from the video of their 1986 version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me", which if we are talking old vs new, that 1986 version just screams 1980s, while the original is timeless. I'm glad they never got around to rerecording anymore of their hits, which was apparently the plan at the time.  

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So you see? I have painted some things after all. and I will get to the rest of them as soon as I have that dedicated painting space I've been dreaming about....Jason. 

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Thanks for visiting!