The DIY Print Shop Story

 

DIY Print Shop Kits

We've packaged our 20 years of experience into high-quality, easy-to-use, comprehensive DIY Print Shop screen printing kits, which liberate you from the learning curve and unnecessary trials and errors, and gets you screen printing in no time at all. All DIY Print Shop® kits are fully packed with affordable, high quality, screen printing tools. All of our products are designed & manufactured by us, in Brooklyn New York, and Washington State. 

We believe our screen printing kits will inspire you to reconnect with your hands, your creativity, and your sense of artistic exploration. DIY Print Shop® makes quality tools for creativity and productivity and at its heart it's a symbol of artistic expression and community. When you purchase a DIY Print Shop® kit, it’s just the beginning of a long-lasting relationship between us and you-the awesome customer.

DIY Print Shop Roots

Screen printing power house Ryonet and creative agency Print Liberation joined forces to create DIY Print Shop. Both companies keep the DIY ethos close to heart - Ryonet started as a couple of punk rockers making shirts for their band on a homemade wood press and curing them in an oven. Print Liberation was formed in 1999 when two friends printed their first T-shirt with a Nirvana logo. Before they became industry leaders and master printers, they logged countless hours printing thousands of T-shirts and gig posters with improvised equipment and a lot of guess work.

Today, Ryonet and Print Liberation work hard every day to make great products for the world and it's people. Ryonet helps thousands of screen printers print awesome t-shirts and Print Liberation designs and prints some of those awesome t-shirts. One day these two companies got together and decided to look back their DIY roots, the basements and garages they started in, and why they started screen printing in the first place. They realized they could give more people the power of screen printing, and also make it affordable, easy, and fun to DIY. This is why the DIY Print Shop® exists. To give people all over the world the ability to DIY, screen print, and create. You can use do-it-yourself screen printing to grow your dream, create a brand, share a voice, or even inspire a movement.

DIY Screen Printing Empowers You

DIY Print Shop empowers you—the artist, musician, designer, entrepreneur, soccer mom, activist—to screen your own T-shirts, start a band, print posters, customize clothing, launch your business, get creative with your kid’s uniforms, or campaign for your cause.  With small-start up costs and limitless potential, DIY Print Shop® screen printing kits allow you to get your ideas out into the world and into your fans or customers hands!

Whether you're starting a business, making art, experimenting with a new medium, or simply screen printing for fun, our screen printing kits have the essential set of tools for graphic designers, fashionistas, entrepreneurs, artists, crafters, Etsy-ers and anyone looking to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary.

A Little Screen Printing History

The history of screen printing dates back 1,000 years to China during the Song Dynasty. It was the successor of stenciling, which was invented over 40,000 years ago. Both methods are some of the earliest forms of artistic expression that have heavily influenced artistic innovation throughout the history of manmade art. While some stencils can be seen scrawled on the walls of European caves, stenciling was not introduced to Europe until the late 1700’s.

At first, the screen was made of silk, hence the terminology “silkscreening”, but due to the expensive price of a valuable commodity like silk, the screen was replaced with a hybrid material made of nylon and polyester. While this modern material strays from the traditional practice of using silk, the use of these synthetic materials allows for the screen to last longer because it does not absorb ink resins and fats, and can be reclaimed after using with photo emulsion. This new synthetic material also allows for a sharper print than with the old method of using silk.

It wasn’t until the 1910’s that printers started experimenting with photo-reactive chemicals such as potassium, sodium or ammonium bichromate with glues and gelatin compounds. The evolution of screen printing developed even further when three printers, Roy Beck, Charles Peter and Edward Owens introduced photo-image stencils. With their contribution, screen printing became more of an art form and less of an industrial product.

For most of the twentieth century, screen-printing techniques were considered, “trade secrets” and were kept confidential. It wasn’t until the 1960s, with the help of Andy Warhol, that it became a more widely recognized art form.

DIY Print Shop Reviews Hot From the Press

Rain or Shine x DIY Print Shop

I am convinced this DIY Print Shop® kits are the most complete beginner screen printing kit on the market.  They certainly cost more than the Speedball Kit I started out with, but you also don't need to go out and buy extra stuff. The tools you receive are barely comparable between those two kits.  The squeegee with the Speedball kit is laughable compared to what you get with the DIY Print Shop Kit.  The Speedball Kit doesn't come with an emulsion scoop coater, transparencies, an exposure bulb, light safe bulb, or degreaser that are all pretty much necessary for printing.  These all come standard in the DIY Print Shop Kit. Once you finally gather all of your supplies after buying a different kit, you will wish you went with the DIY Print Shop Kit, I promise.  

Design Milk x DIY Print Shop

Confession: I’ve always wanted to learn to screen print but I’ve been completely intimidated by the whole process. All the gear and supplies and then having to learn how to do it causes me much DIY anxiety. Thankfully there are companies like Print Liberation® that came up with the DIY Print Shop® that answer my DIY-loving fantasies with kits that include EVERYTHING YOU NEED to screen print t-shirts or posters. Hello, game changer.

Start your own business or just make yourself and some friends a few t-shirts or print some gig posters for your band. The best part is that each DIY Print Shop kit comes complete with every single thing you need to get started. If you run out of any of the supplies, the DIY Print Shop stocks inks and tools to keep your hobby going.

Uncrate x DIY Print Shop

Teach yourself the craft of screen printing with DIY Print Shop® Kits . Available in t-shirt and poster varieties, each kit includes everything you need to get started, including a press, a wood screen, a halogen exposure light with mounting fixture, a squeegee, a scoop coater, a pint of photo emulsion, a yellow bulb, ink, a screen degreaser, emulsion remover, adhesive, scrub pads, french or parchment paper, a manual, and an instructional DVD. Despite all the equipment, it's really not that hard. We promise.

Holiday Matinee x DIY Print Shop

There’s something deeply satisfying about screen printing a shirt or poster yourself. Even when I haven’t done it personally there’s something I treasure about the shirts from friends that were not made in a giant factory. That’s why I find these t-shirt and gig poster screen printing kits by DIY Print Shop® to be a pretty sweet idea. They include everything you need to get rolling (press, wooden frame, lights, squeegee, ink, etc.) and everything is environmentally friendly so you don’t have to feel like an ass for polluting the planet. Seems to me that these DIY Print Shop kits are totally worth it if you’re ready to get creative.

Taxi x DIY Print Shop

The result of a collaboration between screen-printing supplies company Ryonet and creative agency Print Liberation, the nifty screen-printing kits from DIY Print Shop® contain everything you need to start making your own posters and T-shirts.  Perfect for the crafty hobbyist who is looking for a fuss-free, fun and easy way to print unique and good-looking graphic prints and T-shirts at home, DIY Print shop offers some of the most user-friendly kits on the market. Each DIY Print Shop kit also comes with an instructional video CD to get you started quickly.

Craft Gossip x DIY Print Shop

I am in love with DIY Print Shop®. It’s the kind of love where I fell hard and fast from the moment I laid eyes on the box their goods come packaged in and everything I read only made me happier. DIY Print Shop is the result of collaboration between two companies with indie roots: Ryonet and Print Liberation. Basically, they want to help you get your start, by selling you EVERYTHING you need to start screen printing in one super awesome DIY Print Shop box. And by everything, I mean everything–from the press, squeegee, and ink, to the screen, the emulsion, and the light you’ll need to expose your design, not to mention everything you’ll need to keep it clean and working.

And DIY Print Shop Kits include a DVD, explaining how all the steps come together to create perfect prints of your design–either on tees or on posters. And DIY Print Shop is competitively priced, around the same as it’d cost you to pick up a far less customizable system. If you’ve been waiting to jump into actual screen printing, this is the moment to do it–or at least let everyone in your life know you’d like it as a present. I’d certainly love one!

Stupid Dope x DIY Print Shop

Ready to go print your own custom tailored message on something you can wear around town? Don’t be shy about it, go pick up one of these DIY Print Shop Kits which make it easy to do it yourself without the major costs traditionally associated with printing.  With an accessible price tag if you care about your brand and want to take things into your own hands, this is your best bet.

Next time you need to promote your organization or project remember that you can try it at home. Even the most novice printer can figure this out as the DIY Print Shop Kits come with a DVD and all the gear you will have to have while home screen printing.

Hide Your Arms x DIY Print Shop

Screen printing is not an easy job, there’s no denying that, but even I have thought it would be pretty fun to print my own tees, and I’m a guy that already has more than 300 of them. It seems that Print Liberation have felt that attraction too, a few years back they released a book, Print Liberation: A The Screen Printing Primer, about DIY screen printing, and now they’ve gone a step further by launching a new company called DIY Print Shop — their mission is to offer premium DIY screen printing kits to enable you to get your ideas printed and out in the world — Purchase a DIY Print Shop kit and it arrives in a rad graphic-designed-box, that’s fully packed with everything you need to start making high-quality screen prints at an affordable cost — awesome.

Urban Bliss Life x DIY Print Shop

If you’re a DIY sort of guy or gal, I am betting that, like me, you’ve been curious about screen printing. I’ve always loved being able to make my own t-shirts, tea towels, bags, and fabrics for the house and office, but iron-on and other DIY methods never seem as permanent or cool as screen printing. I have a laundry list of ideas that have accumulated over the years (sound familiar?), but there’s something about screen printing that always intimidated me a little. Maybe it’s because I always thought I needed to invest in large equipment and expensive supplies.

Then I discovered DIY Print Shop, through my friend Kim of Today’s Creative Blog. I had no idea I could screen print at home without breaking the bank, and the folks at DIY Print Shop help take the fear out of the whole process. I can't believe how affordable the DIY Print Shop kits are. I've had a number of people ask me what they need to get started in printing and it's nice to finally have one link to send them to instead of a comprehensive list of screen printing supplies they have to gather on their own.  It makes screen printing feel so much more accessible to beginners. 

Crafty Magazine x DIY Print Shop

We fall in love with stuff on an hourly basis here at Casa Crafty so we weren’t surprised when we lost our heads over these awesome DIY print kits.

Be still, our beating hearts! Cupid’s crafty arrow has struck again and made us fall and fall hard for these rather brilliant DIY screen-printing kits from DIY Print Shop, which we reckon will see this art form become the next big cottage industry.
 
You do get literally everything you need in one handy-dandy box and you can recoup all your initial outlays when you start flogging your amazing gig posters, T-shirts and customized clothes.
 
DIY Print Shop is a collaboration between Ryonet and Print Liberation, the latter of which was formed by two Nirvana-loving skateboarders who worked part-time printing merchandise for bands in Ohio. Now its loyal customers include the likes of Urban Outfitters, Nike and Mountain Dew, so it’s safe to say they know a thing or two about a thing or two.

San Francisco Egoist x DIY Print Shop

Everyone's got an idea for a t-shirt. Now they can make it a reality with a DIY screen printing kit. It's got everything they need for awesome, hand-crafted designs. For any art director or designer, this kit will be like Christmas.

Creative Bloq x DIY Print Shop

Sometimes, the limitations of digital software can really get in the way of your work. More traditional methods such as screen printing are becoming more and more popular, as creatives opt for a more hands-on approach to their work. Want to get involved? Look no further, as DIY Print Shop kits have everything to get you started.

Whether it's posters or T-shirts you want to screen print, the folks at Print Liberation have them both covered with DIY Print Shop screen printing kits. Containing tools such as French Paper®, big squeegees, pallets, mesh screens for printing detailed artwork, as well as the DIY Print Shop press.

DIY Print Shop Kits are the perfect start-up kits for any budding screen printer. Containing everything you could need, all you need to bring along is your inspiration, imagination and creative hands.

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