Print Table Of Love

The studio is humming this week!

 

But the news that I'm having the most fun with this week is that I've found a brilliant way to utilize wasted space.

For a long time, I've had a small homemade table, approximately 31" x 46", sitting at the end of my primary work table. I've used it mostly as horizontal drying space and horizontal storage space... frankly, it was simply too low and I am too tall for it to be of much use for anything else. (Ten extra Brownie points to anyone who remembers what I used to have in that space and how I rigged it to provide a flat surface when needed!)

Last year when Greg and I originally built the table we used half inch melamine-covered plywood cut to size (any Hardware Big Box store will do this for you for free), and four telescoping legs from Ikea. The whole thing cost less than 50.00 and because the legs came with all their own hardware, took all of about 30 minutes to assemble. Of course, then I threw a tarp over it and forgot about the legs. The ones that, yanno, telescope.

This weekend, giving in to the demands of my back, I put my mind to the task of devising a tall print table. Predictably, it took me most of a full day to remember the table with t-e-l-e-s-c-o-p-i-n-g legs. Greg and I flipped the table over, pulled the legs out to their furthest position, and locked them in place. Presto, instant tall print table with bonus mondo storage space underneath.

Ok, so here it's not shown being used a a print table so much as an ironing station. Did I forget to mention how handy it is for that? As well as for photographing stuff. Painting stuff. Admiring stuff I've painted. You get the idea: basically it's just handy as snot.

Something fun I did this week on my shiny wonderful miraculous new print table with the telescoping legs was a little bleach discharge with a Thermofax screen and a Clorox Bleach gel pen.

While the pen does provide a narrow point that you could, if you were careful, write onto fabric with, I found it more useful to squeeze the gel out of the container into the well of my screen and pull it across the fabric with a squeegee. The consistency of the gel is absolutely perfect for this application.

(the pale brown areas were "discharged", or had their color chemically removed)

And it discharges hand-dyed fabrics beautifully. Of course, it's bleach so it still needs to be treated with care... If you're going to try this, wear a mask and gloves, please, and work in a well-ventilated room! The bleach also must be neutralized when using it to discharge fabric or it WILL eventually eat through the fibers. 

And yes, that's stacked journaling in the photo shown above. Fun, fun.

I feel like I'm back in the saddle again! Happy creating!