It’s been ages since I posted a journal page here. I think some catching up is in order. This double spread is in my handmade 7″x 7″ journal. I did not sit down with an open journal and a plan for this page. After a productive gel printing session I had a butterfly print and a stripe and stencil print made with the same paint colours. To use them on cards I would have had to cut them up and I really didn’t want to. When gel printing I will often print with the same handful of paint colours for a while before switching them. It makes it easier to keep printing as I have a few paint tubes on h ..read more

This distressed multicoloured look is one of my favourite gel printing looks. I don’t know that I could recreate it but I usually get at least a couple of these aged looking prints during a gel printing session. The pattern is achieved using a stencil laid over paint on the gel plate. This stencil is called ‘leaves and lines‘ and the digital file is available from Echidna Studios etsy store. To make today’s card I cut a 5″x 6″ stencil from Grafix matte duralar using my Cricut. I also cut it as a larger stencil which I used for a print you can see here. You can see on this print that I used a ..read more

Recently I spent a happy few days creating with alcohol inks after quite a break. They did not disappoint! I am looking forward to more experimenting and maybe some Christmas card designs. I created some cards using Grafix white craft plastic (also called bright white dura-lar), Grafix metallic foil board and Grafix double tack adhesive. These are all products I’ve used before and definitely recommend. You can see my process in the video below. In the cards above and below you can see the wavy ocean effects I achieved easily by applying alcohol inks with a felt applicator. I love watching ..read more

Waiting for flowers? I have two daffodils in bloom so that’s a start. These sweet blooms are from the Penny Black clear set, ‘Thriving‘. I’m not sure what the plant is although the little star shaped flowers look familiar. I used distress inks and markers and a no-line watercolour technique featured in my online class Floral Faves. The sentiment is from the Penny Black ‘Scripture‘ set. For no-line watercolour you need a neutral dye ink which will blend in as you add other colours. I used a soft stone, a grey ink from Papertrey Ink for this panel but sometimes choose a pale beige such as dist ..read more

I’m not sure that this is strictly collage although it is all made from cut out papers glued together. I guess it is more like paper piecing, something I rarely do. But gel printing has me looking for all sorts of ways to use my printed papers. The ‘washing line‘ is a digital stamp from Echidna Studios and cutting out all the clothes took me way back to my paper doll days. I printed the washing line image on the seven different coloured gel prints then proceeded to pick colours for all the clothes. I looked through my gel prints; I have quite a few sorted into folders by colour. Most of the ..read more

The collage and ephemera cards just keep coming. Today’s cards feature old book page collage overlaid with one layer of a floral napkin. I have a few collaged ‘mini masterboards’ made so I can cut elements or backgrounds out when I need them. For the card above I picked the rusty orange from the napkin to be the accent colour. I recently bought a notch punch so I can create file dividers of any size; in the card above I made the blank orange one a little larger to show behind the floral & collage one. I added tickets stamped and die-cut, a scrap of hessian and a cut out from an old Betty ..read more

Continuing with the collage theme I have three cards featuring greenery from a paper napkin. I know people have been creating with paper napkins for years but I am new to the game. I have a small collection of pretty paper napkins to use on cards, book covers and journal pages. The green ones featured here are large dinner napkins found at Winners, probably in that tempting ‘just before the checkout’ area! I glued the printed layer of the napkin over book pages to make my main panels and aged the edges with green and brown inks. I created a couple of little vintage postcards with the Paris p ..read more

I’ve recently fallen down an vintage ephemera rabbit hole and emerged to make some of my own backgrounds and elements. There are companies that make beautiful co-ordinating ephemera, papers, chipboard pieces, etc. but I am committed to ‘using what I have’ so I’m pulling from old books, calendars, greeting cards, sewing patterns and scrapbooking paper along with a few handy tools. I’m not going to list every die, ink or paper but I will mention some of my favourite resources. The old books that I am removing pages from include music books, dictionaries, atlases, novels, poetry and recipe book ..read more

Blue is my favourite colour and the different hues seen on this card are examples of why it appeals to me so much. I tend to prefer the blues that are a little bit purply but I like the teal blues as well. All the blues on the card are made from one ink, chipped sapphire distress ink. If you watercolour with your dye inks you have probably noticed that some inks separate into different hues when diluted. I thought I would share this card today because it features in one of the lessons in my Colour Clues online course. Colour Clues is a card making course which covers colour blending, contras ..read more

It’s been a while since I gel printed but that there is no lack of gel prints to show you. I currently have boxes of prints and and a stash of cards made from prints. These two cards were made from the same stencil print, one of the examples from my Gel Print Journey online class (which is on sale along with all my online classes until March 29; just use the code LEAPYEAR40 at checkout) If you are a fan of Lavinia stencils like I am you probably recognise the ‘Pods’ stencil used for this print. I printed on a 6″x 6″ gel plate giving me a print big enough for two cards. It’s hard to see in t ..read more