Playing with Hambly Screen Prints: Ceramic and Glass

I’m knee-deep in a couple big projects this week, but carved out a little time to do some more playing with my Hambly rub-ons. I had a thrifted ceramic plate and a dollar store candle holder. Perfect!

I was mostly interested in how these bad-boys perform on a curved surface. And I was really happy with the results!

So first, I figured out how I wanted to position the motifs. I also cut a little off some of the dandelion stems so they’d follow the contour of the plate’s edge.

I found it best to work with one motif at a time – you can press the pieces into the curved surface more easily that way.

If you’re working with a larger piece, you might even try clipping here and there into the edges so that it can lay flatter against the surface. The flatter you can get it, the nicer your rub-on will turn out.

…Still liking that crochet hook as a burnishing tool.

The whole key to success here is to peel the backing up very, very slowly when you’re done burnishing. If you see any evidence at all of the design not quite sticking, put that plastic back down and burnish some more.

So, it probably goes without saying, but the minute you add rub-ons to a ceramic dish, it’s no longer food safe. But it can still be useful! It’s a good idea to seal the rub-ons, because they can be scratched off with heavy use.

You can always use a spray sealer over the whole plate, but I wanted to try a couple of simpler options: Diamond Glaze and Mod Podge, brushed just over the design.

The Diamond Glaze was dandy, drying nice and smooth. If you’ve never tried this stuff, DO. It has a thousand and one uses.

The Mod Podge wasn’t bad – perhaps a little brush-stroky.

Incidentally, the glass was even easier to work with than the ceramic. All I did was gently press the rub-on to the glass along its center. Then I pressed out toward the edges.

This finger-press was enough to release most of the design to the glass, and a little burnishing with my crochet hook took care of the rest.

If you want to see more uses of these rub-ons, check out this gallery at the Hambly blog.

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