hold the peanut butter

because it's ALL GELLI around here, during the third week of 30 days of gel printing with birgit koopsen via instagram!

day 14: texture

birgit showed a really cool technique to make your own texture blocks using a variety of foam and cardboard shapes. coincidentally my aunt had just given me half a box of self adhesive foam letters in truly ugly neon colors, which i came very close to tossing away. as it turned out, they made the perfect tool for this!

day 15: fall

i used the "color within color" technique where you're essentially lifting off some paint thru the stencil, then replacing it with a different color, so it looks sort of like stained glass. this one is a testament to how different a print looks when you add just a teeny bit of pen doodles on top.

day 16: yarn 

(mandala monday)

yarn (like lace) is a surprisingly good mask! above are my yarn-centric prints, and below is the mandala i made by using circle and heart punches on the dry prints and building the shapes into a mandala. 

day 17: texture plates

the name refers to some very cool specialty tools, which are a bit like rubber stamps, but unmounted and made specifically for gel printing. alas, i don't have any, lol. so i tried some embossed foam sheets (which kinda worked) a flat plate for building lego's on (worked really well) and my little hand made foam letter tool thingie (worked pretty well). i was also testing some chalk-like acrylic paints which are sort of cool, though they dry quite a bit faster than ordinary ones.

(due to time constraints and a surprise party we threw for my mom this week, i skipped over day 18: vegetables and day 19: complementary colors; hope to double back and get to those next week; but honestly i'm slightly shocked to have kept up as well as this anyway!)

day 20: felt tip pens

another technique i would never have tried if i wasn't participating in this challenge and checking out birgit's post most days! basically, you just color on the plate with kid markers... in this case i had laid down a background of pigment ink and colored thru a stencil. this is easy and fun, but don't attempt anything super formal because you definitely see the pen marks on the plate.

gelli, gelli, gelli!

it's time for this week's round up of gelli printing goodness and ...in a few cases... frustration, actually. it was sort of a mixed week, lol!

day 7: trace

did you know you could use alcohol ink markers on the gel plate? nor did i! they work really well tho. posca paint pens work pretty well too, though they are more likely to stick to the plate. for this prompt we placed a magazine or coloring book image UNDER the gelli plate and traced around it with a copic or posca, then pulled the print with paint. i'll definitely come back to this one!

day 8: pastels or chalk

i'm lonnnnnnging to try this technique with pan pastels, but alas, all i had were some ancient chalks and the method still worked pretty well. i confess i did add some pen details at the end just because my colors were so very soft...

day 9: stencils

a bit of a cheat here, but it was mandala monday, so instead of making new prints i took some older ones (which were made with stencils) and assembled a mandala from punched circles and hearts.

day 10: pigment inks

if i was only going to choose ONE favorite technique for the week, i think this would be it! so much so that i'm going to just tell you to watch the birgit koopsen video because it shows you exactly how to do it -- you don't even need PAINT!

(ps: i didn't have texture plates like the ones birgit used in the vid, so i made my own by using embossing folders on scraps of sturdy cardstock!)

day 11: multiple layers

after several triumphant days of trying a new thing and having it turn out brilliantly, when i got to this one it just. did. not. want. to. work. the brief was to add design elements to the plate in several layers and then lift the whole thing in one swoop at the end. this just didn't happen for me. i made some absolutely beautiful plates that either didn't release at all or got too covered up with paint or... well, something. i was bizarrely comforted to hear (via instagram comments) that apparently a lot of folk struggled with this one. and i think i miiiiiight have an inkling of how to change my results now...

day 12: repeat patterns

ok, so, back to the pigment inks for instant gratification lol! i applied ink to my small diamond plate, "lifted" some ink with a beautiful ken oliver flower mandala, then stamped the diamonds repeatedly to make a harlequin pattern. 

day 13: mixed media

another one where i loved my compositions but failed repeatedly to actually lift them successfully off the plate. i think the problem might be that i'm using too heavy body of paint. i'm going to try this (and the multi layer prompt!) again with thinner, less pigmented craft paint and see how it goes!

peace on earth

it's time for a brand new theme at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and this time we're giving PEACE a chance. by which we mean: we'd love to see holiday cards which feature the word peace OR the peace sign OR maybe even just a peaceful scene? lots of ways to go with this!

background made using my favorite things inks and gelli arts gel plate (plus embossed scrap cardstock to "lift" some of the ink from the plate)... watch birgit koopsen's video for the full technique; sentiment stamps: avery elle... colored in and shadowed with tombow dual brush pens in aqua blue and grey, respectively, plus a few white dots with a fine tipped posca pen; tattered snowflake die: tim holtz/sizzix; snowflake brad: eyelet outlet; dark blue cardstock: bazzill; white cardstock: staples; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape

one of the prompts in "30 days of gel printing" this week was pigment inks. since i had never used pigment inks with my gel plate, i went looking for a video and found this absolute treasure from birgit koopsen. and i'm completely hooked. so when i realized i had the PERFECT stamp set from avery elle, and all i really needed was an interesting but flat background, i went to town! all i needed to add was a little little color and shading to make my letters stand out a bit more, plus a beautiful stacked snowflake held on with an eyelet outlet snowflake brad.

stephanie has also made a beautiful and peace-full card to inspire you. why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and see that right now!

because i have SO MUCH free time, lol...

...thus i've decided to take part in birgit koopsen's "30 days of gel printing" challenge! ok, seriously: i don't really have time for this at the moment and doubt i will complete every single day. but... BK has such amazing ideas and as soon as you see them you kind of HAVE TO try them. and i've already learned a couple of slam dunk new techniques, such as this awesome "packing tape lift" from last night:

day 6: tape

even if you're not into gel printing, i highly recommend watching this 5 minute birgit koopsen video of the process because it's completely hypnotic! and i'm not just saying that because i'm too lazy to describe the technique in detail, although that is also true! :) to sum it up briefly: you compose sparingly on the plate, using paint, stamps, stencils, etc... let everything DRY... and then use a strip of clear packing tape to lift the design off the plate. absolutely brilliant and quite easy to do! i predict you will be seeing this again. a lot.

(i highly recommend birgit's videos generally, for that matter. there's no voice over, no extraneous detail, you just watch her demonstrate and any crucial facts you need to know show up as text on the screen.)

day 1: colors of your flag

i couldn't quite resist making stripes with my small brayer and using nested star dies to make my own cardstock masks.

day 2: mask

possibly my all time favorite stencil is michelle ward's nyc skyline stencil and masks set which is exclusive to the ink pad. you can tell how much i love it by how grubby all the parts of it are, because that is not a second print off to the left, that is the stencil and masks!!!

day 3: lace

i used real lace, you can see it at the bottom there! for best results i used a fair amount of paint on the plate, laid the lace down, and carefully pressed the paper into all the nooks and crannies to get the detail. i found thin deli paper to be best for this, since i could actually see that the was paint transfering before i lifted the paper.

day 4: water soluble crayons

this is something i need a lot more practice with. you have to dip the crayons in water to get them to make distinct marks. and it's quite easy to be too wet or too dry. i'm happy with my finished print, tho i confess that after the main design was dry, i outlined the various shapes and marks with a dry scribble stick to show the detail better. i think in future i'd use a contrasting color, as well!

day 5: no brayer

i used a plastic palette knife to spread and blend a few shades of paint, then lifted that gorgeous design via michelle ward's hex pattern stencil.

this may well be the only week in september that i do ALL the prompts, but even if i stopped right now, i'd feel like i learned more than enough to make it well worth my time! ♥