Customer Reviews

Style Six Silk Screener

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I really do hate misleading product names. I suppose I could have sussed it out if I'd read every single bit of the description and realized what WASN'T being mentioned, but I didn't.

To be clear, this is not silk screening. What you have are some fabric paints, some stencils, a couple of flimsy brushes, and a couple of frames for holding the shirts somewhat steady wile you paint directly onto the shirt through the stencil. And the stencils themselves are, well, just lame.

We ended up not using the frames and making our own stencils. So really the only part of this "kit" we ended up using were the paints and the brushes, which are now dead and cannot be used again.

In short, we managed to have fun with the product despite it's short comings but it was certainly not what it said it was. For the price I don't necessarily expect high quality so I don't fault them for that but I DO fault them for the misleading name.

Meh.

My aunt beat me to the punch when she bought this as a Christmas gift for my 9 year old daughter. In all fairness, I should tell you my daughter loves arts and crafts - but I'm pretty positive that even kids who couldn't care less about artsy activities would love this set!

First of all, the set is durable. When she first took it out of the box, I was a little disappointed, thinking the plastic tray should have been stronger. I was wrong - the strength was absolutely fine, and it works well. Every other piece of this kit is well made, strong, and can stand up to a child's "abuse". Granted, this kit is for older kids - who should know how to treat things properly - but it won't break if it's dropped, the hinges won't come apart if they try to slip in a garment too thick to fit, etc. It's made a whole lot better than most toys are these days, especially for the price! (Note: This set is especially fabulous if purchased for $20 or less. I would pay the $30 regular price - but hesitantly. However, I'm really frugal because I'm a single mom...and think $30 is a lot of money for a toy.)

The fabric paints are decent quality - they are great colors, have a nice consistency, go on pretty well, give good coverage, and don't make the fabric "hand" too funky. I paint a lot of fabric, and even as a paint for kids, this really is decent. I don't know how well it will stand up to washing - the directions say "Turn garment inside out. Wash with cold water in machine on "delicate" cycle, by hand or according to manufacturer's instructions. Hang dry." - which leads me to believe that regular machine washing may cause the paint to come off, even though you heat set it by placing it in the dryer for 30 min (on "delicate" setting) after paint has dried. My dryer may just be really old (which it is), but it has no "delicate" setting, so we used "low" and it worked fine. Oh - you say you don't want to know anything about my old dryer? Then let's get back to the Silk Screener.

There are 8 different templates - 4 large ones, 4 small ones. A good selection of choices, made of decent-grade plastic. They are definitely re-usable, as is the paint roller, and the sponge blotter. The only issue I have with these things? All are re-usable, yes...but it isn't kidding when it says to clean up the paint right away. My daughter could get the paint out of the sponge roller and blotter - but getting it off the stencils and roller tray proved to be a much more difficult task. We finally just let it soak with hot water and some dish soap - which seems to have done a decent job of removing the paint.

The only other problem I see with this kit? Style Six provides a piece of cardboard they call a "separator", which goes between the two layers of the garment you want to paint - like between the front and back of the shirt - so the paint doesn't accidentally leak through. Necessary piece of equipment - but the cardboard they provide is a joke. Unless your child is the size of a Muppet, and silk screening something about 4"x4". Ok, so it needs to be that small to fit into the small silk screener - but they need to provide a much larger one to fit the large silk screener. Or, you can seem really clever to your kids - and place the large silk screener between the layers of your garment, only clasping one layer to the frame. (Isn't it nice when you have easy ways to impress your kids with your knowledge and ideas?? Yeah...never enough chances to do that - and not have them prove you wrong!)

The Silk Screener is actually like getting two silk screen stations for the price of one. Two children can easily play with this toy at once, which is a definite plus. The down side? The amount of time the directions say to allow things to dry before heat setting one layer and moving on to the next. It was our experience that it took less than 45 min for the paint to dry - but I suppose that could change with humidity and the thickness of paint applied. The sponge roller makes it easy for kids to get a consistent amount of paint on the garment - a nice, thin layer. The blotter? Not so much. You can blob the paint on to your hearts content with that thing.

Also, the thickness of the stencil makes it a little difficult for the sponge roller to get paint in the corners of the designs - which is really no big deal. That's where the blotter comes in! I would much rather have a sturdy stencil that can be used many times, and use a sponge blotter to get the few areas the sponge roller missed - than have a crummy stencil that falls apart during the first use, but allows you get get all the crevices and corners with the sponge roller.

My daughter had a great time playing with this - she also got the Style Six Foil Applicator and the Gem Decorator - and she's played with them all day so far. (We're at about 6 hours now, with breaks to play with other things while she waits for things to dry.) I had a great time playing this with her - she could mostly do it all on her own, with just a little help from me. Ok, so maybe I "helped" a little more than she really needed me to, just because I think it's a cool toy.

A piece of advice, though? This doesn't come with any fabric/clothing/garments to silk screen anything on...so if you're buying this for a kidd-o in your life, you would be very smart to buy a couple of cheap plain t-shirts to go with it. If you don't, the small person may decide to try this on their own clothes - which may not make their parental units very happy. It seems like thin fabric works better for this - and you can usually find several thin, plain, kid-sized t-shirts for like $10. Style Six also has refill kits available.

What a deal for a toy kids will definitely go back to time and time again. My daughter and I give this an A+!

My 9 year old loves this. She has had a lot of fun creating shirts. The paint also holds up in the washer and dryer.

I got this for my 8 yr. old daughter for Xmas. We're both very crafty & have made lots of shirts before. We were both looking forward to using this. While it's not horrible, it's certainly nothing fantastic either. The applicators don't do a great job of getting the paint inside the stencil, and we ended up using a paint brush several times. My daughter did enjoy it, but you could honestly do just as well with your own stencils and fabric paint.

This isn't a silk screener. There's no screen. There's no squeegee. I kind of like the machines that hold shirts in place, but they're nothing to write home about.

Do yourself a favor and cut out your own stencils and get a can of spray paint. You'll get better results than with this kit.

I know this is geared toward small children, but don't use the terms "silk screener" or "screen print" when there's no screen or squeegee involved.

My daughter got this as a birthday present. She's 7. It's a wonderful toy to have and explore with. You must go to stylesix dot com and see the absolutely simple process of 'silk screening'. No, it's not a true silk screener~It's glorified paints and stencils. However, it comes with a nice template/shirt contraption that actually nicely introduces children into the processes of silk screen and design. It truly is a simple yet creative toy to get involved with your child.It comes with many cool stencils. The paints work nicely. I can see we'll need more paints soon and wouldn't hesitate to go to Michael's or Hobby Lobby and buy fabric paints to substitute. The web site I mentioned above is great for showing you different ways to think outside the box and use this toy. I'm even going to use my Cricut and make some stencils for my daughter to use. The possibilities are endless. We enthusiastically give this toy 5 stars. It's wonderful and very very very simple to use. I plan on going to the craft store and buying some simple addt'l rollers as the kit only comes with one and rollers are fairly inexpensive. Boys would enjoy this too! I've also explained to my daughter we can 'recycle' old stained favorite shirts by silk screening right over the stains. You could stencil hats, totes, ties, etc.

Please see K. Babcock 'Queen of Mixed Media Arts' review for a detailed review.... She did an excellent job with her review and I agree with every bit of it!

We loved this. I have a 6 year old daughter, 4 year old son, and 3 year old daughter. We all gathered around the kitchen table to figure this product out. It took minutes! The biggest challenge for me, personally, was convincing my 6 year old to do something more 'trendy' (for my taste)....

Once we realized how easy it was to print one shirt... The younger kids wanted one, so we just found some little 'wife-beaters' in their pajama drawers and did some simple designs. They can't wait to wear them to bed!

I love the fact that I am not obligated to use Style Six ONLY products to 'add to' or embellish our designs. I can always pick up more fabric paint at the hobby store (which I frequent more than the toy store) We also plan on using some rhinestones to jazz it up a bit....

This 'toy' has so much future potential for us! My 6 year old will be able to design shirts for her friends as gifts... The clean up is simple (it bears repeating that it's best to clean up immediately after each stencil use)... The storage seems simple (we haven't actually put it away yet!) It's a simple concept for my kids to grasp, in case they end up talking the babysitter into getting it out....

I love it!

It is definitely fun for the creative but the foam roller that it comes with is not firm enough to add paint evenly on to fabrics. My 8 year old did better with the blotter but it was still not very firm. I plan to buy a foam paint roller at a discount store to add to this so she can more so use it on her own.

We went into this purchase knowing fully that this was a stencil/paint combo. I consider myself crafty, and have been decorating my own shirts for 25 years, but this has it's moments that left even me relying on tape and gloppy fingers. My 8 year old is very proud of the end results, but I wouldn't leave her unattended with these until I get some re-positional glue to put on the back of the stencils. There isn't enough to keep the stencil in contact with the fabric and paint gets underneath the stencil. She does love the shirts, though!

This turned into a mess that spread through our home as it was tracked from room to room by my childrens feet and hands. The paint is not controlled easily to make the screen print on your materials. Eventually there is paint on everyone and everything in the house and not a cute shirt around. It is not a very good toy and I would not purchase it again.