Alex Toys Silkscreen Factory – Review

I’m always looking for things to do with my daughters, specially things that are crafty but pathetically easy to do. I am not a crafty person myself. When I came across this kit for Alex Toys Silkscreen Factory I thought it would just fit the bill. Plus, I figured the results would actually be useful. That is still an open question (will my kids actually wear what they make?), but at least I have enjoyed using it.
The kit is quite simple. It comes with a plastic screen, several pieces of “silk” (in reality some plastic mesh), six or so stencils (some with multiple images), an applicator and a few sheets of paper to practice on and to cover a specific image if you are using a multi-image stencil. The kit also comes with 4 1-oz tubes of color paint: green, yellow, blue and red and a bandana for you to decorate. As far as I can tell, each tube should be enough to cover four full-size stencils. As usual with Alex products, the kit seems expensive for the price (I paid $24 for it), BUT if you want to try silk screening for cheap, there don’tt seem to be too many other options out there.
In all, I think the kit works pretty well. You have to be careful to not move the cloth or the frame when you are silk screening it, otherwise the paint will smear. You also have to be sure to cover the whole screen with paint, perhaps with more than one layer, to make sure that it all makes it through the silk. And you have to be careful to apply the paint both firmly and gently, lest the silk bunch up. It’s held pretty tight, but this has happened a couple of times when my 7-yo was screening.
One thing I must say is that this is not a kit for perfectionists (such as my 7yo) – it’s easy to make one of the mistakes above and end up with a less-than-perfect silk screening (see below). But personally I think it’s a really cool way to decorate a shirt or a bag or whatever. My kids, so far, have enjoyed using it.
As I mentioned, the kit comes just with a bandana, but you can buy 50% cotton – 50% polyester t-shirts at Michaels or Joann for $2 on sale. These silk screen beautifully. The bandana also went well, though we were less lucky with an apron. All this said, this hobby can get expensive. I think that I’ll take advantage of future sales to stock up on cheap t-shirts, aprons and bags – and then take the silk screening kit out when we can make something for someone’s birthday.
By the way, Alex sells a refill for when you run out of ink. It comes with extra stencils and silk, but I think it’s expensive for $12. Instead, when I run out of ink (and I’ve already ran out of the red one), I’m planning to buy some fabric paint. I’ve also read you can use acrylic paint. Hopefully that will be cheaper 🙂
One thing to remember: wash the screen, the stencil, the silk (which is reusable) and the squeegee as soon as you are done – if the paint dries, it stays there forever.
Here is a very useful youtube video showing you exactly how you use this kit.