MAIN Toy Reviews Style Six Silk Screener

Style Six Silk Screener

Style Six Silk Screener: Jakks Pacific, ages 8+, $39.99 USD

I'll admit we were thinking this one was going to be more mess than it was worth, but we never back away from the chance try something new!

While the kit comes complete with everything necessary, you have to supply the clothing to be silk screened. So we break out the kit:

The Style Six Silk Screen kit comes with 4 bottles of fabric paints, roller, 1 large silk screen frame,1 small silk screen frame, 8 stencils, 1 masking board,1 paint roller, 1 blotter, and a small plastic supply tray.

We choose t-shirts for our designs. Thicker materials may require a bit more practice to get right. Place cardboard inside t-shirt to prevent paint from bleeding, put the shirt on the silk screen frame, snap the clamshell locks into place over shirts, put stencil on top. Easy enough.

We secured the stencil with a little scotch tape (there are pegs to hold it in place but we felt a little more confident with the tape.) Next we applied paint. Please keep in mind that this is permanent fabric paint, so any clothing it gets on it is staying on. Wearing a smock or old clothes are advised for this activity.

We let the kids go: they chose designs, overlapped, mixed colors, and just had a blast. We had some very cool and creative designs, and some very proud t-shirt designers. Our t-shirt designs ranged from simple hearts to outer space scenes.

Amazingly, we had minimal mess. We were working with kids preschool to tween, all very excited. We limited our medling to holding the frame still, transferring freshly painted shirts and assisting the younger designers.

The recommended age is 8 plus, and that is a pretty good rule of thumb. We did work with preschoolers, but found that the younger children required much more physical assistance to make their creations. The older children worked pretty independently, with minimal assistance from the adults. Naturally, we recommend adult supervision and participation. It's always more fun that way.

Overall, this was a great activity, with quick results and very little mess to clean up. The designs are really limitless. Use your imagination and go wild, mix colors, designs, stencil the front, back, side, sleeves, just have fun creating your wearable art.

In addition to being fun the Style Six Silk Screen kit reinforces hand/eye coordination, small motor skills, spatial reasoning, problem solving, communication skills, and encourages self esteem.

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About the Author: Mary Rose is a Mommy, a writer and an early childhood educator who believes in learning through play and the value of good toys.