Time will tell....

I had a dream... Ok, somewhat of a plan to turn Henry Ford into a pocket watch....

Did you know, Ford's father gifted him a pocket watch, which he took apart. This inspired his tinkering and a desire to build. Did you know Ford made an ELECTRIC CAR along with Edison way back in the late 1800's/early 1900's? Do you care why I know this? Our son, along with his partner, did their National History Day project on Henry Ford, and how his manufacturing strategy helped grow the middle class. They did REALLY REALLY well, and made it to the State competition. Not bad for a couple 6th graders.


ANYWAY, about my tag..... I used Tim Holtz' Pocket Watch and the Circles Dies to cut several layers of black cardstock, the image of Ford, and acetate. I used 4 layers of the die cut pieces between Henry and the acetate layer so that I could put the game spinners inside.



The finished tag is done



The base layer of the tag was embossed with the Diamond Plate & Riveted metal texture fade. It has layers of Distress Ink, Stain, and is spritzed with Perfect Mist to give it a shimmer. I hand cut the banners at the top from scraps made on canvas paper with my Gelli Printing Plate.

I added a Hitch Fastener to the tag hole, gears and a clock key as accents.



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Card: stamps, dies, embossing

I need to make some birthday cards. I had colored & cut out some stamped images from the Pondering Petunia set by Dylusions a while ago and wanted to use them. They are bright and colorful, fun and sometimes for me, it's nice to go bright.



Then banners are also by Dylusions from the Bags of Buntings set. The HB sentiment is from Hero Arts and stamped on canvas paper. I cut it into a banner. The yellow layer is cut from the Labels One set by Spellbinders and embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The layer behind that is a print I pulled from my Gelli Printing Plate as well as the scrap which I fashioned into a party hat. There's some leftover embossed Ranger Foil tape added to the hat as well.


The base card is made using a Card, Ornate#3 die by Sizzix. I then used the 3D Pop-up card die using LABEL Pop 'n Cuts insert.

(yes, I know it's difficult to tell as I photographed this black card against black cardstock, duh... me) You'll have to use your imagination until I make another card.... sorry.....

 

This is another one of those dies that I LOVE the idea, LOVE the samples I see, but need to work with because they are so different from my style. When I become more in tune with these dies, I will be able to do 'my thing' more comfortably with them. It's just how I role!

 

 

 

 

 Card Ornate #3

 

 

 

 Pop 'n Cuts Insert, Label
       Flip-it's square



  

 
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Tag! fairy jar!

Oh I had such a cool idea!!!! I had to make a tag with the theme On the Wing.... I have this really cool mason jar Sizzix die that has matching embossing folder. I had previously cut & embossed several in clear packaging.

And I had this fabulous dragonfly woman that fits perfectly inside.

I had the cool tag from the other day done in similar colors. Best yet , a recipe for fairies in a jar!



Gosh I had hopes this was going to work, but the glow ran out of juice! Cheap stinking dollar store glow sticks .....









The mason jar was suppose to glow like this:



Pretty sweet hey??? You cut up glow sticks in a jar with Diamond Dust glitter & shake!

Sigh.. It would have been so cool if it would have held its glow long enough to get to Minnesota ....


Items used in this Tag:
Dylusions Sprays, Acrylic Paints, The Crafters Workshop Stencil, Rubber Stamps, Sticky Back Canvas by Ranger, Gelli Arts Printing Plate, Glitter, plastic packaging, Sizzix Bigs Die & Embossing Folder, Twine.

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More Gelli girl

I love it when the idea pans out. ESPECIALLY during a class or demo! Like I said in my previous post, I was working for 4 hours, and never once cleaned off my Gelli plate. Or brayer. Which was developing a skin! I had to stop myself from 'peeling' it off like old nail polish.... BUT I digress....



POINT BEING, there is quite a bit of residual paint on the plate from previous prints.
I used a 12x12 Crafters Workshop stencil called Botanicals. Brushed paint into the open are of the stencil, removed the stencil & pulled my print.

I was limited to paint colors this day. Red, Yellow, 2 blues, white, black, 2 ochre like colors, and a very deep purple. The orchre and yellow with the deep blue, created the greens. I knew that was going to happen (really, I did).
This is a second generation print. What I find ESPECIALLY when I'm demoing and yapping away, the paint is drying on the Gelli plate. So now I keep a mister of water handy & I spritz the paint, wait a bit to let the paints rehydrate and pull another print. I've gotten some really cool prints using this method!
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Getting my Gelli Girl on!

I was so THRILLED to demo the Gelli Art's Printing plate again at Artist and Display for their 2x a year Make Your Mark event! Always a great time!

I worked with the Gelli plate, Golden Acrylics, Catalyst Tools, The Crafters Workshop Stencils, some homemade die cut stencils, rubber stamps and other mark making 'tools'. Buttons, bubble wrap, punchinella, a credit card.....
For the most part, I used Mixed Media paper by Strathmore, which I love, tags, canvas cloth and a tee shirt.

Over the course of 4 hours, I made a TON of prints, but I'm just going to post some of my favorites!

With this piece, I used Akua Printing Inks (by Speedball). The red & yellow are the Akua. I used a rays stencil (not sure of the real name), brushing in the yellow & red. There is A LOT of residual paint that popped thru the teal , but love how that just adds so much depth!  

This is the second generation print. You can see how strong the Akua paint is!

 

I just love this piece. It is SO cool in person, if I do say so myself!

I wish I would have taken a picture of the Gelli plate, but that's tough to do when you're demoing to a crowd, and you're hands are full of paint!

After the previous prints I pulled, I had again, had residual paint. I demoed for 4 hours and never once cleaned the paint off the Gelli plate. Or the brayer, paint brushes or tools. I just cleaned up stencils along the way. SO, with this print, I basically made marks with paint (white teal yellow black) and 'tools' like bubblewrap, a button, mesh... Then laid the stencil down & brushed some paint into the open areas. Removed it and pulled this great print!

 

The residual ink from that printing was used on the tag below.

 

This tag, started out as a piece, that was a 2nd generation print, that really didn't have a lot going on. It 'needed' layers & depth. So while working on the RAYS piece above,

I used residual paint remaining on the Gelli plate, to add depth. I introduced one of the newer CW stencils as a mask to the plate (Sally Carly), and brushed black paint around it.

Removed the mask, and wa-la! I LOVE this one!



Here's a little close up. You can see the red rays, and all of the pattern from previous Gelli prints.

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Getting my Gelli Girl on with the Umbrella man….

 

Sassy! This turned out as a ‘finished’ (more or less) piece right off the Gelli plate!

I had made a stencil AND a mask from the Umbrella Man Die by Tim Holtz & have used the pieces on numerous Gelli prints. I die cut it using stencil material by The Crafters Workshop. You can by 12x12 sheets of their very material!

 

The word IMAGINE was done using another Tim Holtz Movers & Shapers die, cut out of Co-ordinations cardstock. The cut piece was a little boring and needed some paint anyway, so a perfect use!

 

I also used a piece of punchinella, which is where the fun bubble design on the Umbrella man comes from.

 

I laid the cut stencil onto a mildly clean (ok, there's some residual paint) Gelli plate.

I used my brayer to ink his hat & shoes black, the umbrella red and a bad mix of deep green & blue for the rest of him…

I then covered the stencil with the punchinella & brayered white over the top of the Umbrella man.

 

The cardstock IMAGINE, I laid face down onto the Gelli plate, and then brayered red paint onto the backside, trying to keep the paint inside, where the letters were. You can see the texture of the cardstock surrounding the word.

 

Since the brayer had cool design from the white brayered punchinella, I ran that around the plate slightly to frame the piece.

I removed the stencil & puncinella, then I did laid my clean white cardstock onto the plate & pulled it off.

The color on the right was from a second pressing into Distress Stain I had put on the Gelli plate from another pressing. It just added a little color to the edge.

 

These 2 were done using residual paint & pressings from other inkings.

Mono Printing with the Gelli Plate & Embossing Folders

I JUST LOVE this technique. Now, I’m not saying I made this up (but maybe I did), but I haven’t seen it done elsewhere. Yet. So if you’ve seen this before, let me know. Otherwise, I’m coming up with a cool name for this technique. For now, we’ll just consider it an embossed mono printing technique.

 

So, if you’re like me, when you get a new die or embossing folder, you’ll run cut or emboss SEVERAL pieces with no real purpose other than to try it out. I have folders FULL of these (you’d think I could actually get a completed piece of work done with this stash). I grabbed 2 that had a great design & depth. The Subway Texture fade from Tim Holtz and the other one by Sizzix. I’ll also include the Honeycomb.

I brayered acrylic paints onto my Gelli plate, and laid the pre-embossed (using tan Co-ordinations cardstock) piece into the paint.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of this!

I can see doing this, A LOT. The finish from the paint (and I BET the new Distress Paint will work REALLY cool too) gives this a semi glossy finish, and will create a great resist to some additional inking with Distress Inks or Stains. It will also help keep the embossing raised when using additional wet mediums.

 

Above is the Gelli plate, after the embossed piece was pulled. (note to self, place a piece of white cardstock underneath for pictures). Because the Sizzix Texture Fades have such great depth, the text & design pulls so well, making for a great ghost print! I LOVE that the text WILL BE rightside facing in the final print. 

     

TA Da!!! The image on the left is the print, onto white 110# cardstock. The image on the right, shows both the ‘print’ and the original embossed piece from the first press together.

Now there was a lot of paint on my Gelli plate, because I hadn’t done a print prior to putting the embossed piece in. Therefore, there was still quite a bit of paint for the 2nd print. The words are  distinguishable, and there is some white space.

What a great background this makes!!!!

 

Now this time, I had some paint left on my plate from a previous pulling, before I laid the embossed piece onto the Gelli plate.

This is one reason why the cardstock piece on the right of this image, doesn’t have as much paint on it as the Subway piece in the first experiment.

You can see on the left side, the design on the Gelli plate, produced by the embossing folder.

Pretty sweet!

 

This image shows white cardstock pulled off the Gelli plate, transferring the embossed design.

You all are going to L*O*V*E doing this!!!!!!!

 

These tags was done using the Honeycomb Texture Fade.

The white piece in the center was the original embossed cardstock. The tags are the pulled pieces.

See what I mean? VERY COOL backgrounds!!!

Loving the idea? I know I am.

I can’t wait to work with some of the other embossed pieces I have just waiting for me!

 

I have a 6x6 Gelli plate, and am finding this to be a great size to work with for what I do. The paint stays pretty wet for the amount of time I need. While working with the 8x10, which again is a great size, the paint dries up a little quicker. I notice the difference.