Another Recipe Card

NOTE: Not sure if it’s me and my preferences that changed of if WordPress changed how they handle PDFs as attachments, but if you right click on the PDF link (just below this note) and select something like Download Linked File (that’s what I get on a Mac) then you should get it as a PDF rather than a display of an image.  Very odd – never used to happen like that…..

 

It’s been bugging me that I had the one Recipe but needed another so I could share the 2-to-a-sheet PDF.  This one has this technique and the Ombre load one.

I guess this is both a paper tool as well as a technique!

Have a print ready – best for this is a simple texture pull, nothing too busy but with some interest. I neglected to take a photo but something like a simple grid, bubble wrap, wiggly lines, etc.

AHA!  I did actually take a photo!

1. Start by punching a square (or rectangle, depending on your plate size) with an Anywhere Punch that is slightly smaller than your plate.  You want there to be a border (mine is about 1/4 inch) around the punched area and THAT area to be less than the size of your plate.

Here it is on the plate so you can see what I mean:

2.  Brayer the paint over the stencil

then remove the stencil.  If you are ready with another print or blank you should be able to flip the stencil then press it onto another print and “stamp” with it while the paint is still wet.

3.  Pull this print over the simple one.

Tip: I have the small plate, so if I am pulling on a bigger piece of paper, it helps to align the top edge of the paper with the top  edge of the plate.  Then when the paper is face-down on the plate, you can lightly pencil marks to denote the two side edges. When doing a two-stage print like this that should help keep things properly aligned.  Cutting the paper to size just means paint squidges out, gets on my fingers, and sometimes onto the print.

Dark over light works

as does light over dark!

and that one looks amazing IRL but less so on the screen.

For me, it’s the frame that makes it.  I have a ton of punches and many of them could produce something that works as a framer.  I just have to find the time to play!

We had a bit of drama yesterday when a trio of senior citizens on motorcycles were passing by.  Our road is narrow, twisty, hilly, and the end of our drive is on a very sharp S-bend.  One of them (he was 70 YO!) came off his bike.  One of the others came up to the house as they had no real idea of where they were to tell the ambulance.  I called 999 for them and could see the guy laying in a heap at the bottom of the drive.  The ambulance came quick, 5 minutes or so from the time we hung up I would guess, and they ended up taking him off to hospital – it was suspected that he didn’t lose control so much as perhaps blacked out which MADE him lose control. It was all a bit tense but his main concern was that no-one call his wife!  Thankfully one of his mates DID call his wife, and I’m hoping it all turned out fine for them all.

Silhouette SVGs

Still busy at home, but I did want to add these silhouette SVGs for cutting with the Cameo/Cricut with SCAL/etc. Luckily marked as free for personal or commercial use in the TOU so I can share them!

Since I can’t add SVGs directly to WordPress I have had to put them in Dropbox.  I hope these links will take you right to them.  Click the image to go to the file.

Ignore the grid lines – they aren’t in the file, just that I grabbed that view as a snapshot!

I think I might do one of the sneaky-looking briefcase guy but cut off the briefcase LOL!

Here is a shot of one set cut from report covers (although I did resize a couple of them so it looks like more):

I think you should be able to break apart the SVGs then regroup figure by figure, so you can resize them, and could cut the reverse – i.e. a stencil outline of one figure, missing out the internal bits unless you added a connector line or two.  These are sized both to fit my Cricut mat and cause I only have the 6 x 6  Gelli plate, but I would resize them to fit A4 for a journal page, or indeed resize for multiple/any size journal page!

No cutting machine?  Some of them are simple enough to cut with scissors or a craft knife.  You can cut them out of paper if you don’t mind cutting them over and over, or from Tyvek  for a longer lasting product.

As requested, the two images as .png files for people who want to hand-cut them and can’t do it as I describe in the comments:

 

 

 

 

 

Gelli circle tray card DONE!

Until I get the UKS Blog Hop project done, I really have to focus on that (and some end-of-summer household tasks) but I did say I would add this so I will:

 

I have an idea of who should get it …. although if my desk wasn’t so crowded all the time I would keep it there.  I love the colours and the reminder!

Just a better look at the words round the trays:

 

 

WOYWW 221 – round and round, sort of

We are having a bit of a blog hop on UKS on the 9th and the hop stop people are busy working on projects.  Me too.  This is what my satellite table looks like today:

Hiding all the details but even if I show this I’m hoping you will still have NO IDEA where it’s going.

It’s an odd one to be sure, but I’m hoping it’s going to end up pretty nifty.  Just need to source one thing that I don’t have enough of.

I took a shot of the Gelli wallpaper spots actually on the wall, but I liked them better the way I had them laid out on the piece of paper.  I peeled them off (and they do remove like a dream, so far) and set them up the way I liked. I also maybe should have moved the monitor a bit more so they weren’t so much in shadow.  Still, they are actually on the wall – can you see just the edge of the clock? And how about that pebble dash? Oh yeah, we are posh ’round ‘ere …

Have a happy WOYWW – hope it’s not too hot as the fields are being fertilized and OMG does it STINK.  The windows are closed, and hot apple pie candles burning, but DD and I may just have to vacate the house for a bit and hope it all sinks in by the time we get back.

Gelli shelf card

I was looking at a pile of Gelli prints that I made for the recipe cards – not the ones I pulled on the back of the cards as the sample but the ones I made so I could photo the process.  I liked them and they seemed to be all in fairly coordinating colours so I felt like I should do something with them.

As DH is taking DS back to Uni over the next few days and it’s just me and DD at home, I’m trying to spend some quality time with her.  We took a break from the various getting-ready-for-college tasks she wanted to do with me to watch Les Mis.  With one eye on the screen, I quickly put this together  I made the base from black card to really help the bright colours pop.

 

Just at the back you can see a bit of card that I used to clean off the brayer.  The bright yellow will be perfect for, I think, a nice arty quote.  Any suggestions? I like these so far and they seem to work

• Live inspired
• Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working  (Picasso)
• Let what you LOVE be what you DO
• Creativity takes courage (Matisse)
• Create everyday

Oh, and speaking of DH – after placing 2nd at the Isle of Wight chili cook-off, he and the team came in 1st place at Reading.  He was very happy and said it was the best batch ever, full-flavoured and complex, with enough heat to make it interesting but not enough to blow your socks off.  Result!

Now, I think I have a date with Spotify and Audacity.  DD has her enrollment interview tomorrow and it’s WOYWW day so the completed card won’t show up till Thursday.

That Was the Day Printables for Project Life

These have been languishing in a folder on my desktop for a bit, as I was so sidetracked by Gelli play.  But I really wanted to finish them and share.  They have been tweaked since the photos so this is the colourway.  Just nice and bright, not designed to match any collection.

 

They probably look a bit more acid on the screen then they print with my printer LOL!

It’s a two-page PDF.  But a bit about the circles. They are designed to be cut with a 2 inch circle punch then cut in half.

Once you do that, you can mix and match the colours, pointing finger direction

or even leave off the fingers and fill the half-circle with just a dotty background.

 

I thought the no-finger half was more useful than a finger-pointing up to the words, but you can always use the blank one and add a stamped or printed finger to it (or add one in PSE!)

As ever, they look fab printed on textured cardstock or plain, and use a Photo Paper/High quality setting for the best result.

Hope you like them.

Gelli print wallpaper?

I mentioned a week or so ago that DD wanted to redecorate her room.  With her learning difficulties, she doesn’t always understand when I try to explain to her why something is maybe not the best idea.  Trying to let go a bit I made the mistake of telling her she could pick the adhesive wallpaper border for her new room.  She picked a sideways stripe.  Ugh. In BROWN. Double Ugh.  And as this is quite an old house, there are no walls that are square and true.  Somehow the stripes just made that stand out.  So I had the idea of cutting out some circles from the remains and then of getting a sample of a nicer border and cutting out some circles from that.  Applying them 1/2 on 1/2 off the stripes it really made the whole thing just a bit more fun and funky.

Why am I telling you this? Well in the end I had just a bit of the border left so I went ahead and cut some circles.

First,  I gave them a coat of Gesso to give it some tooth

Then a coat of white acrylic paint to better hide the pattern. This was pretty faint anyway and covered easy.

Then I printed on them. I just addd some temp adhesive to the liner on the back, the bit that gets peeled off, and stuck them to printer paper, to make the printing easier.

Then I stamped on them.

Now I can add them to my craft room wall for a bit of instant decor.  As they are meant to peel off without damaging the walls (although our walls have revolting textured covering – I am pretty sure it’s called “pebble dash” and that looks exactly as yo would expect it to look) I know after the third or fourth border change in DDs room, it DOES strip off the paint if there are cracks in the plastering. Also if you are one to wash your walls, I certainly would put a coat of Mod Podge or the like over it, so you don\t sweep over it and somehow transfer the paint to the walls.

I know here in the UK most stores have an open roll so you can tear off a chunk to take home.  If you want to do 50 of them and decorate your whole room, I would say buy a roll.  If you just want to do 10 or so, you may be OK with just a sample.  And frankly, you could do the same with lots of different arty techniques – just be aware of them.  If the kids get into a water gun fight in the lounge, you are heading for  a disaster if you used Distress ink LOL!

Now, with the 6 x 6 inch plate, I don’t know if I could do, for example, a whole border – the prints would have t be side by side, maybe slightly overlapped, but even so I think the “join” would be pretty obvious, even with a very limited colour palette and maybe some stamping to try to hide it.  The circles (or whatever shape you can cut) add a bit of interest without being overwhelming.  But you could do a whole BUNCH of circles, as if they were a border.  Just mark a line with painter’s tape, scatter the circles above, on, and below, overlapping a few, etc. till you have the effect you want.

I’m not sure if doing a recipe card for this is worth it – it may be of limited appeal and I hate to make people print a set of two when is something they will never do. So should I make this one and hold off for another oddball technique to match it with? Find something else to mate with the Ombre one I did?  DOH!

Gelli Ombre & Recipe Card

NOTE:  Sorry to have lied in the title 🙂 I can’t add a single card, I need two to fill the sheet.  I’ll aim to do another soon and add the pair in one PDF.

ALSO, I had a few comments where people asked What I need is idea of what to do with my prints! I do have a few projects that I hope are a bit interesting in the Gelli Plate Play menu item at the top.  Hover over it and select Gelli Projects when the menu drops down. Hopefully some of those might inspire you.

I am hoping this will explain a bit better the post from yesterday.

Here’s the deal: If you apply dots of paint to the top of the PLATE, then try to brayer over them, even if you do so in as straight a line as possible, unless you have a MASSIVE brayer, certainly for the larger plates, to avoid mixing up the colours yo either have to roll out the width of the brayer, then apply more dots of the same size, onto the open area, and hope the spread is such that you don’t lose the defined bands of colour OR you have to clean off your brayer first so you don’t cross-contaminate.  If your cover is patchy, you have to deal with that as well.

What I found, even with the 6 x 6 plate, is that it is far easier, and gives a better result to add the paint to a piece of Fun Foam to spread it and load the brayer, and then brayer the paint on to the plate.

The nice thing is that the paint stays wet on the foam – I got at least 4 reasonable loads of the Gelli plate from one foam piece.  And I can wash the foam and reuse it again.

There are a few options for covering the plate.  You can brayer on the first section

Rotate the plate 180 degrees

then brayer the other side.  Depending on how you arrange your bands of colour you could get dark in to light then back out to dark again, OR two side-by-side groupings of the same colour strip.  I neglected to put a sheet of paper under the plate which would have made the colour arrangement a lot more obvious. And even though the coverage on the plate may look a little patchy, see the print below – it looks fine.

One helpful thing is to try to make the dots of paint match the size of the brayer – like so:

When you first try to roll out the paint on the Fun Foam, it will sqidge a little.  Be gentle, don’t press too hard, and stay in a straight line!

I also played with rolling the ombre strip in the middle, then rolling just on the edges – you just have to make sure only the edge of the brayer is on the plate.

Look how cool the print is!  And the ghost/2nd pull looks good too.

For these I just did the 1st pull then the 2nd, then the second layer for each was the reverse – I used a really simple combo so it should be obvious.

Left is 1st pull of yellow, with 2nd pull of green over the top. Right is 2nd pull of yellow, with 1st of green over the top.

But there is actually a lot more you can do!

Clean your brayer.  Look at the first complete rotation of the brayer, very dark, followed by the 2nd rotation, much lighter:

There is enough paint to use the foam as a stamp pad too:

And you can even pull a print off the foam:

AND if you spritz on a bit of water to the foam, you  can keep pulling off the paint – on paper at the left, on Deli paper on the right:

I am interested in experimenting with unrelated colours, just to see how that works.  Yellow, Pink, Orange and Turquoise might be interesting….

Ideally I would be adding the card here, but as they are set up to be two per sheet, I’ll have to come up with another one first.

I’ve added a Gelli Recipe Card page under the Gelli Plate Play menu at the top. That is where I’ll be “collecting” them for now and where you will find this one when I get a companion one finished!

Gelli Ombre

Definition of OMBRÉ

: having colors or tones that shade into each other —used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark

— ombré noun

Funnily, I kept getting a Spanish card game when looking for a definition of OMBRE to grab and add.

Anyway, this will be super quick and I’ll come back to add some more samples and possibly do a Recipe Card, but I just thought it was kinda nifty.

I’ve tried to control the roll, IYKWIM,  keeping paint on the Gelli plate in a straight line, but it just never seems to work out for me.  Maybe you are better at it than I am, but it never looks as smooth on the plate as it does when I do this.

More Fun Foam – is this just a wonder product or not?

1. Get a sheet of Fun Foam.  Apply dots of paint along the top edge.  Ideally the width of the paint should pretty much match the width of your brayer.

2. Roll smoothly, top to bottom, spreading the paint in a straight line.

See how the brayer is loaded?

3.  Brayer the paint on to the pad, also in a straight line.  Use whatever Gelli technique you like. Here, a stencil.

A few points to note: First, the paint stays wet on the foam for a bit.  That means you can do multiple columns of colour, keeping the order the same.  So for a larger plate you can roll on the paint and create a repeat – or you could do light to dark, then do the first column, rotate the plate, then do the next column, matching the dark colour in the middle.  I am struggling to explain this in words and it is one of the samples I want to do, a picture being worth 1000 words and all that.

I have to dash off to a meeting, but I am loving the look of this, and I hope you do too.

Another set of Gelli Recipe cards

Still hoping that this idea might catch one and other Gelli Artists might take up the gauntlet and make their own versions of Gelli Recipe cards.

Now I finally seen DS back off to Uni (thru my tears) this idea is one I will hope to follow-up on.  So if you are a Gelli artist at any level, and you think you have a technique to share, consider making a card! Frankly, the more the merrier and I am keen not to have to make every card for MY Recipe Book myself!

Although one person I chatted to about this thought a download of the card template would be useful, since I use a weird little program no one else does, it would be a bit useless.  What I will do is give what I HOPE will become a standard, so if I were to download other recipe cards they would still “fit” in my book.

1. The text area should be no bigger than 4 3/4 inches by 6 1/4 inches

Why? Using a 5 x 7 inch blank (unlined) index card as the easiest base, this leaves 1/2 inch along one short edge for binding.  The size ALSO works for 5 x 8 index cards. The downloadable recipe is printed on a 5 x 7 inch index card and a print is pulled on the BACK.

2. The recipe area should contain photos and text. Be concise. Add any notes you think people will need to know, but leave room for them to add their own notes.

My hope is that although the photos are small, they will work with the text to give people enough info to have a go – actually making the sample for the back will solidify the technique.

Other than that, I certainly am not going to impose any rules. Some of my cards are portrait, some landscape – it really depends on how much info I feel I need to communicate!

Hands up, I admit I discovered a box ticked that constrained the proportions of my background boxes in my program.  I didn’t notice till I was working on the ones I did today that the cards were not the right size.  I am devastated.  I can only plead mommy-tears clouding my vision as my not-so-little baby bird flies the coop till Christmas. Deepest apologies, and I will immediately correct the download from yesterday and add the right ones here.  I hope people drop back by to get the right ones.

• Two-Tone effects from one layer pull PDF
• Another two-tone Texture effect + Fun Foam Tools you can make PDF

and new today:

• Interesting Additions: Mica Powder and Glitter PDF

Here are the two new cards:

and here are the samples.  Why is it so HARD to really show shimmer and glitter in a photo?  I did TRY…

Glitter

Mica Powder

Anyone fancy joining in? If you DO make a card, tag it Gelli Recipe Cards and  comment here with a link.  I’ll be adding a page in the top menu for Gelli Recipe Cards and will consider buying a Mr Linky if it turns out anyone other than me does them LOL!

Now I am going to miss my boy a little bit more and watch a mindless teen-movie with DD.