This week we have been talking about printing your own fabric. And that takes paint. Fabric paint is usually more expensive than regular acrylic craft paint. But what if you already have lots of acrylic paint on hand?Will it work to paint on fabric? You can paint on fabric with regular acrylic paint, but it won’t fare well on items you intend to wash. If you want to wash the fabrics you print, you need to mix a textile medium with your acrylic paint before you paint. This is what I found to use:You mix it two parts of paint to one part textile medium. The easiest way to do that is to squirt out drops of each in a 2:1 ratio. The textile medium does not change the color of the paint, so you don’t need to be concerned about the color changing if you need to mix more.

If you already own lots of acrylic paint colors, using textile medium will save you money when you want to do fabric prints. It is especially helpful if you only need a small dab of a particular color and don’t want to buy a whole bottle of fabric paint in that color. If however, you are painting large portions of fabric in a particular color, it would probably be better to buy the fabric paint to begin with.

In some of the designs in Part 3, I used fabric inks. I think these are probably more commonly used in air brush painting, but it worked with using brushes, brayers, and stamps. You don’t need to use much though because a little goes a long ways.

I own very few ink stamp pads, and I was hesitant to use any of them with my fabric printing. I was not sure if they would hold up with washing. However, I found this website with a very helpful post about comparing various brands of ink stamp pads on fabric. She shows how each brand of ink looks when stamped on fabric with the same stamp and then how those brands fared when the fabric was washed. The ink from one stamp pad completely disappeared in the wash!

As I research, I am finding so many more ways to print on fabric. Of course, some of it will require investing in more supplies, so for now I will keep experimenting with what I have. You can buy special markers for fabric printing in all kinds of colors (and widths). Then there are fabric spray paints to use with stencils or a special kind of ink you paint onto paper and iron your design onto the fabric. You can also buy special papers to put into your inkjet printer to print a design onto and then iron it on your fabric. And don’t forget the many dyes to use for tie dyeing fabric.

I have only just begun to explore the creative possibilities with printing my own fabric!

Are you ready to try something different and print your own fabric?