Adventures in Screen Printing!

So one project I have wanted to try this summer is screen printing. My boyfriend has some ideas for starting up a t-shirt company..we'll see!

Mind you, screen printing is something I have never taken a class on whatsoever through my fine arts training. I have done just about every other type of printmaking, but never screen printing. So I decided to purchase a kit at the local Michael's. It included a screen, a squeegee, some ink, screen filler and drawing fluid, and photo emulsion and the remover for it.

I tried the most basic of screen printing, just by making a paper stencil with an x-acto knife, and that didn't really work out. The ink didn't seem to want to go through the screen and the stencil onto the paper (I think I used too thick of paper?). The photos below are from the blocking out method with screen filler. My friend created a logo in Photoshop, I printed it out, stenciled it lightly with a pencil onto the screen, and then filled in around it with a paintbrush and the screen filler. This came out WAY better than the stencil! I am still learning, and these are nowhere near perfect, but here are some photos!

 Original stencil on the screen

 Stencil test on paper

 Stencil onto a cheap-o t-shirt. I didn't tape the whole screen and went too far down with the squeegee, so that's what the blue line at the bottom is. :( Also, I think next time the logo needs to be much bigger to fill the t-shirt.

Does anyone out there know a lot about screen printing?? Any tips?? All of the instructions I seem to find on the internet are more for doing it in a t-shirt shop and not handmade. Help!! :)