Thursday Test: Screen Printing Paints/Inks

Happy Thursday Morning!

If you've been following along, I took advantage of Michael's great sale on the YuDu last week and brought one home. I tried it out on a few projects & love the way they all turned out {let me take a moment to say that I already had YuDu experience from my job with ASM/Campaigners for ProvoCraft last summer, so I am a little ahead of the learning curve even though I have much more to learn}.

I decided to try some things out - vinyl images versus the emulsion process, for example. I also did a little research on the inks that ProvoCraft makes and looked into using some other paints to see how things worked out.

The YuDu brand inks are water-based and worked well for the most part when I used them last summer. I did have a problem with the paint running (leaving a shadowy effect on my screen-printed image) with the paint sometimes - not sure if this is human error or a characteristic of the paint because it seems with practice & attention to detail, I haven't had this issue on any of the projects I really wanted LOL.

On the WhatDoYuDu.com site, they do a comparison of different types of inks/paints with the YuDu machine here. I do agree that the paints can stain the screen, however, if you read it closely, they mention that the YuDu ink can stain the screen as well.

I did not try fabric paint or any of the others, but I did find at Joann Plaid Simply Screen (they have a full line of screen printing stencils, paints, adhesives, & glitters and more) paints in a wide range of colors. And based on price alone - $2.99 compared to YuDu's $10.99 - I decided to try them out.

	YuDu Inks	Plaid Simply Screen
Ease of Use	easy to use; twist top helps to control paint distribution	easy to use; distributes a fine line of paint
Cost	about $10.99 for one 3oz. bottle	about $2.99 for 2oz. bottle
Ease of Cleaning	if rinsed off immediately, pretty easy to clean & does not stain screen; if not rinsed off immediately, will heavily stain screen	if rinsed off immediately, pretty easy to clean & does not stain screen; if not rinsed off immediately, will slightly stain screen
Paint Salvage	top screws off to allow for excess paint to be returned to the jar	paint cannot be returned to the bottle
Colors Available	I have found 19 colors of YuDu ink - 12 of which seem to be only available in 3-pk sets	there are at least 27 colors of paint available
Extras	YuDu has recently released adhesive, foil, & flocking (these can be used with the new 70 mesh screen)	Simply Screen makes adhesive & has glitter & foil
My thoughts	The YuDu inks are okay & work well with the YuDu. The color selection is lacking. The price, however, does not make me want to go to these paints as a first choice.	I really enjoyed using these paints. They offered the colors I needed without the need for mixing. The price allows me to get every color I can get my hands on! LOL!

In the picture below of my daughter's and my matching shirts, I used the YuDu Wine ink (from the Muted colors pack) and I used the Simply Screen Bippity Boppity Blue paint. The quality of coverage is virtually the same & I don't think I am missing out on anything by not using the more expensive brand. What do you think?

And the baby blankets from this post were also done with the Simply Screen paints in Pink Pony & Fairytale.

For other YuDu-ers out there, what paints/inks do you use? What other techniques do you use with your YuDu?

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