Challenge #207 and Making THE Card

Challenge #207 - Unbatz by Sandy Hunter

I absolutely loved this new tangle; it is one of those really fun ones that you can't mess up.  OK... you can, and I did (every single time), but you can't really notice it too much :).

You can see here the challenge with a link to the step by step instructions.  Definitely try it, if you haven't yet!!  So easy and fun!  Unbatz is the whitest of the tangles below and a variation on the tallest mountain.

I used a hand-carved stamp I created last year for the mountains, traced them with a sepia micron pen, and then had fun tangling inside the mountains.  Then had this crazy idea of tangling the sky and leaving the moon white :).  This was done on an ATC sized Bristol paper.

Making THE Card

I have a little niece who loves to make cards for people on their birthdays.  On my last birthday, I got an awesome one, and was asked if I would please make one for her on her 5th birthday :).  She said she loved the one I made her last year (here) and was really looking forward to her next one.  That was 5 months ago! 

So, I had to make her something special.  I started out with getting out my Gelli Plate.  You can see below how I had everything really organized when I first started :)

• Mark making recycled items on the right
• Acrylic paint all lined up behind them
• My 6x6" Gelli plate
• Some hand-carved stamps, a couple of my home-made stencils
• brayer
• Different types of paper
• baby wipes
• container with water (the black thing next to the paints) to put my hand-carved stamps in after using them

Let me just say that's not how this table looked after an hour or two :)... it looked like a hurricane hit!  But I did get a lot of fun prints; here are some of them (including one of my cats' tail).  The one I ended up using for Rowan's card is the pink /blue one on the left (in the middle).  It was printed on both sides - on purpose :)

I cut the bottom piece for the card, stamped a bit more on both sides with my hand-carved stamps, and then added more details with acrylics, colored pencils, sparkling pens (which she loves), watercolors, pen and ink, and a Sharpie for the edges.  When I folded it to make an accordion book, because it was thick bristol paper, it cracked and it looked awful.  So... I cut it, added eyelets, thread, and... done :)

Challenge 203 and Gelli Plate Fun With Stencils

Challenge:  Athitzi by Eleanor Holt

This was a fun challenge (here) as I found Athitzi very much like cross-hatching but had never seen it done quite this way.  The shading adds so much!!!  Never crossed my mind to do shading on cross-hatching, I'm sorry to say. 

Actually, now that I look at the tile, I can see a lot of other shading I could have added... I think I was so excited to add the shading to Athitzi, I forgot about some of the other tangles :)

Gelli Plate Fun - new stencils

By now you know I love my Gelli plate :)... I have created a few stencils specifically to use with it, and couldn't wait to try them.  Some were created from Tyvek, others from transparencies.  Some were cut with scissors, others with a stencil burning tool.

I'm experimenting printing on different surfaces as well.  From card stock, to tags, labels, rice paper, tissue paper, fabric, deli paper, and paper tape.  It's all fun :)

So here are some of the ones I printed recently:

Printed on deli paper.Top 2 leaves were cut with scissors from a transparency;
bottom 2 were also cut with scissors from Tyvek.

Printed on tissue paper (recycled wrapping tissue).
Stencil and mask cut with scissors from Tyvek (recycled envelope). 

Printed on tissue paper (recycled wrapping tissue).
All leaves and masks cut from Tyvek.  The one on the top left with the open designs was cut with a stencil tool; it isn't as smooth and even as the ones cut with scissors.

Printed on card stock.  Same leaves as above :)

Printed on card stock.
Flowers cut from transparency with stencil burning tool.

Printed on card stock.  
Leaves cut from transparency with stencil burning tool.

Printed on card stock.
I drew a tree with white glue on foam board a couple of years ago;
it didn't turn out as raised as I wanted (pretty flat, actually).
I was shocked it actually shows in the print!  Nice surprise!

Printed on deli paper.
This is Priscila's window design (with some flowers peaking through);
 stencil cut from transparency with stencil burning tool.

Printed on deli paper.  Same design as above.

Printed on card stock.
The distressed brick wall was cut with stencil burning tool from Tyvek.
Same with leaves on the left (texture type of mask).

Diva's Challenge #201, Gelli Printing, and ATCs

Diva's Challenge #201 Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day 2015

The Diva's little boy has Moebius Syndrome and the challenge this week is to use the Moebius Syndrome Foundation logo to help raise awareness for this disorder.  You can learn about the syndrome and the challenge in Diva's site here.

My submission for this week is a bit late and a bit tiny :)... it is a Bijou.

Gelli Printing

Last week I had a couple of hours with the Gelli Plate and as usual, had lots of fun.  I wanted to try out the new masks and stencils I had cut, and I did, but also ended up using some of the old leaf masks I had created before from Tyvek.

I had a bit of trouble with the paint drying on the gelli plate before I was done taking prints.  I think next time I will have to mix some glaze with it since I'm not ready to spend money on Open Acrylics yet.  Anyway, I still had fun, as you can see :)

ATCs

It's been a really long time since I've created a 2.5" x 3.5" card, but even longer one to trade.  Well, I decided to create some and enter a swap, since there is really no pressure on how many you have to send in.  You can trade up to 15, but if you send less, you will receive as many as you sent in.  Cool!

So, I've been thinking of some of the things I've done in the past that I enjoyed, and some of the things I would like to try.  The great thing about this small size is that you can try so many different techniques and if you don't like it, it isn't usually a big investment of time.

Here are 3 I have finished.  I have 2 others in progress, and ideas for a few more (including using some gelli prints :).  We'll see how it goes.

Gelli Plate Printing

A couple of months ago I got a 6 x 6 Gelli plate and have started playing with it.  I absolutely love it!!  I need a few hours each time I use it as I keep thinking "what if..." and I cannot stop until I've tried at least some of these what ifs :).  Because of this, I have only had maybe 4 or 5 play sessions with my gelli plate, but boy oh boy!  have I had a lot of fun!!

Here are some pictures taken with my phone of the "mess" I made during these play sessions.  

I started to think about creating an art journal with some of these prints, and also do some collages to start with.  I also want to see what else I can do with these (during the last session I tried it on fabric as well).

Here are two quick collages I've done on Tyvek - this will allow me to do some sewing later on if I want.  This was just the first step, I will now play with these prints and eventually turn them into a finished piece of some kind (don't know what yet).

Last week I started playing with a couple of the not-so-good prints, to see what I could come up with.  I had a lot of fun with them :)

And so, inspired by all the fun I had with these 2 prints and 3 awesome books I got from my nieces for Christmas (about book art) I finished my gelli print art journal yesterday.  You can take a look at it here:

I feel this is just the beginning :)