Well, not exactly. But it is a giraffe on a purple shirt.

My little buddy (the boy I babysit nearly every day) had his third birthday last month. Two things he is absolutely sure of on a regular basis: his favorite color is purple and his favorite animal is a giraffe.

In addition to a few cars and some stickers, I decided to make him a shirt. Mostly because I couldn’t find any giraffe shirts at Target.

I found a few tutorials online and cobbled together my own screen printing method using curtain fabric, an embroidery hoop, and some handmade stencils.

It worked well for the yellow base coat of the giraffe’s body, but not exactly for the spots.

The paint didn’t exactly go through the tiny holes. It frustrated me a bit, considering it took so long to cut out every single spot, but it gave me a good basis to paint on the spots that didn’t come out by hand.

I painted the outlines, eyes, and leaves as well because by that point I didn’t want to mess with the home-made screen anymore. The curtain fabric was not rigidly woven enough and it started creating large holes. Painting ended up working pretty well.

Have you ever tried to silkscreen this way? Anyone else like to throw in a hand-made present along with (or in lieu of) store-bought ones?