WOYWW 691 – still a bit of a mess

Happy WOYWW to everyone! My desk is first mid-play, adding colour to the back of the bare flags (see yesterday’s post for more on THAT!)

and I wish I could say it got better, but instead I think it got worse. And even worse, all my desks are still a mess! Eek.

I am nearly finished with the double tag book, but have some process steps to share (tomorrow) and if things work out like I hope they will the final piece will be done. I jumped to something else in that left photo, doing botanical gel plate prints, in advance of a class I am considering

Of all the gel printing I have done, and it has been A LOT, I have never done botanicals at all. As the garden is waning with the end of summer, it seemed like the right time to finally give it a go just to see. Not an amazing pull, but also not complete crap either!

It was interesting enough a process to confirm that the class will teach me something and the teacher makes stunning art, so very much thinking it will be fun. But, final touches on my flag book are needed.

Happy WOYWW – windows on track for week after next so fingers crossed all done and dusted pre-WOYWW crop. Just hoping nothing ELSE stops me from coming…

Deli paper, Vaseline + Distress Oxides for the win!

You may recall me doing a play session using Distress Oxides, Vaseline and stencils over coated cardstock and photo paper.

Tons of fun, lovely pieces in the end, and I then did it using stamping with Vaseline too. Well. I have been thinking of best ways to get the DI over the Vaseline and it occurred to me that the Gel plate might offer some interesting options. For example, previously I just smeared the DI on to my glass mat or a tile or something like that, then added the water and dragged the paper rhtu it. The effect was more … scattered ink, which was lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it was always pretty wet and took a while to dry so you could get to the buffing part. This was the same technique on tracing paper/vellum, which really highlights the scattered ink effect.

I also had the idea, being that I seem to be playing with collage a lot, that deli paper might also work. I love the translucency of it and the collage options so…

As the last time, Vaseline thru the stencil, but the DI added to a gel plate then the ink misted with water to get it moving

Once the ink is more liquid, press the plate over the Vaseline from the stencil

Without looking back, you may find it hard to tell that there is much less ink on the deli paper than what my past experiments with smeared-on-glass/time efforts. And it was OK to blot LIGHTLY with a piece of plain paper to remove some of the wet ink so you can buff off the Vaseline sooner.

Another stencil:

You can even add a bit more Vaseline (or any generic petroleum jelly product) and buff it but even if you don’t, the jelly you originally pushed thru the stencil will be enough to make the piece resist water and allow you to collage it, the matte medium will not smear it.

I like the distinct line of colour with this method, just a different effect than the other. Two more tricks to add to your gel plate play and collage! I have been playing with this, trying to develop the cover focal points for my double flag book. A couple of samples speak to me. Not shown here, cause it was photo paper not deli paper, but, yeah, should work. Nearly done…

In praise of mini-gel plates and fixing mistakes…

So I shared progress on the mini flag book, which I am mostly pretty happy with. But in the end I was kinda annoyed by the fact I had two serious lapses in judgement.

First, I neglected to do any decoration on the backs of all of those little flags. Would have been super easy to do before I put the whole thing together.

The second but related lapse was that even when I looked at them and thought hummm… I carried on and added the covers. I mean, clearly the universe was trying to warn me and I totally ignored it. So then I had to think of WTF I was going to do. I did try just using a dauber to add colour but it looked… not right

Tiny gel plate to the rescue!

I was MUCH happier with the effect there, and it was just by using one of the minis that I could sneak the plate in to the opening between the layers of flags. Phew. I slapped a tiny bit of nano tape onto a water bottle lid and added a tiny star. Also small enough to sneak between the layers of flags to stamp a coordinating image.

Very happy. It is not meant to add a lot, just make the backs of the flags a lot less…bare looking. Which it does.

So still left with a decision o the cover. I have an idea or two that should work. Let me play. Hum. Play or tidy… what will it be…

90% done but not quite.

So the thing I have been trying to make is something called a double flag book. There are very few photos of them (most annoying that there are some on Pinterest that lead nowhere – grrr) and no real tutorial. I don’t recall seeing one in any of my bookmaking books abut from the photos I have seen I thought I had an idea of how to make one. The elements are the slotted together accordions for the spine, then lots and lots of little flags. I’ve show how to make the slotted spine a few times before and I didn’t bother to photo those steps again. But basically you just need to add the flags on both sides of the accordion.

From there, you add the covers, as you would imagine. The only issue is the cover needs to be big enough to cover the width of both sets of flags when the book is collapsed/closed.

As you can see I used the little set of active affirmations from a few days ago to make an uplifting little book full of good advice. I wish I had thought to print on the back of the flags as well, because unless fully opened you can see more of the backs than I realized at first. Might have to go back and consider how best to solve that little problem!

Now, what next? Can I really let that small card box sit unloved for much longer? The affirmations would have worked equally as well with that, but now I’ve used them twice I am not sure my psyche can handle that much positivity LOL! I will consider and see what inspiration hits me. If it doesn’t, well, it will sit, accusing me of neglect, for a bit longer.

{sigh}

Project progress! Gel printed with tissue resist

SO. I have moved on from the first stage of my project, with those tabs of cardstock covered in my tissue resist gel prints.

And each one has had some stamping, some stenciling, some spattering, and some edging in gold done to them.

A bit of a close up for you:

And this is likely to give the whole thing away! Or maybe not. I did say that I was struggling to find the instructions for something where I saw only a finished project when I checked online. I think I cracked it but it’ll have to wait till I’m done to be sure. It could all go pear-shaped even at this late stage…

WOYWW 690 – I lied. Not clean at all.

Happy WOYWW! Getting excited for the crop and hoping all goes well and I can actually make it. Fingers crossed!

What can I say? Chaos!

So I have been playing with a printed tissue paper resist thing I shared in the Gelli Printing FB group last week and really having fun with it. It was only when I went back to repeat the images here that I realized I never did blog about it! Crikey, that’s shameful. So while my desk above is horrifying I will share now as a distraction LOL!

I got this cheap-ass “metallic” tissue paper that was not at all shiny metal as the Amazon image implied. Very dull. I thought it might be cool if I gel printed on it. It was, but in a totally different way to what I expected!

Yeah baby! So the printed bits on the tissue resist the paint on the gel plate, much in the same way the ink in a magazine image or a laser printed image does. You end up with really cool prints and the combo of the paint you put down to resist+the paint you add to pull is super fun to play with. Here is an in-process shot of a project I am working on – this is a series of small tabs covered in those prints from above and something that will turn into a real project very soon. Unlike that damn box, which sits, accusing me of neglect, on my desk, STILL. Bah!

So more to come on this, and very soon. The next couple of days are packed, again, but I am determined to not leave another project abandoned. Happy WOYWW!

Thought I would add some printables…

I am working on a project that is taking more time than I would like. Typical. Also, as the window replacement inches ever closer the thought of having to clear my window area is bone chilling. As part of the project, I collected a sheet full of what I am calling ACTIVE AFFIRMATIONS. Lots of lists are (to me) seemingly random words. These are ones that I see as ACTIONS. Single DO words and BE phrases, all in a simple typewriter font, east to cut and use. Download via the link as the image is very low resolution!

I used some of them, you may recall, in the little collage boards I made from last week.

I am still considering where to mount these, although for the moment they sit above my main desk, precariously perched and likely to tumble down on my head as I work. LOL!

Anyway, I have been dithering about adding them to the box o’cards I have shared but then I recalled another project that I had in the back of my head and thought that might be better. I have been hunting for a tutorial and for once, YouTube has failed me. I’ve seen the odd thumbnail of what I want but never instructions. It’s taking me a little while to settle on the best method. Watch this space!

WOYWW tomorrow and oh but my space is a catastrophe at the moment. Time for a quick tidy up, I think…. Don’t worry, I’ll share both the messy and the clean. Full disclosure, always!

Bamboo pen for ink scribbling

About those scribbled circles…I love to be able to combine things when I can, so I am taking something I saw in a class (Kate Crane on FB – highly recommend the class but not the platform!) for markmaking. Now, I may be totally off on this, as she didn’t really teach it as part of the class – or at least not what I have watched so far) but the visual was enough for me. The Hubster has some bamboo plant stakes in the garden, and while (from what I recall) Kate mentions “a reed” I thought I would try using what I had. So I snipped off a bit from one of the stakes, and found my little hacksaw. It is a point of contention that I can never find tools in his workbench room so I have a small toolbox with smaller duplicates of things I use often (pliers, hammer, a small set of Muji screwdrivers, a hand cranked drill, box cutter and a hacksaw) that I know I can always find.

Used an old block so I didn’t hack into my desk and

Ta da! Well, kinda. So the way I cut it, the pointy one, which is the one I thought would work better, is stubby. Harumph. I worked on the rounded one a bit with an emery board but then I had an idea. I jammed a paintbrush with crappy bristles into the end and Ta Da again! Sorry for the unfocused blurry photo but you get the idea!

And most interesting, I possible didn’t really need to worry, because both ends work about the same. Maybe the pointy one gives arks that are a bit finer, but not significantly. And ink works pretty much the same as thinned down acrylic paint, so all good there.

I didn’t really explain the circular scribbles from the collages so I will now. After scribbling a circle (or after punching a hole, then scribbling a circle – I did both) I cut the outside edge of the scribble so I had a slightly organic shape. Then I was able to use my micro-tip scissors to cut inside the circle as well.

I love the effect and have made a pile to add to my collage fodder keeper! You can look back and see them on the collages.

You can see, in one of the photos above, my little card-box lurking there, all but screaming “FINISH ME!” and yet I don’t want to work on it and mess it up. Argh! Maybe I will have a solution over the weekend. Here’s hoping.

Affirmation boards – little collages all done!

I put my head down, cleared my mind of clutter and focused on finishing that little collage project. Yes, yes, I know the card-box still awaits, but this project MIGHT inform that one. Let me begin with using up stuff LOL! I have this bit of pop-dot stuff from (I am not kidding) 15 years ago. I just do not find I need to pop things up a 1/2 inch, ever. Not sure I ever did! But I had a kind of plan for the collages and I thought I could use pretty much every scrap of this and be done with it. I started bu covering a couple of exactly the same size mats (off-cuts from a frame maker) with black card

then added not only to pop dots but all of the cut up surround as well to the back of the collages

That was going to let me pop them up from the background and I liked how that looked.

I had an idea for adding what I call active affirmations to each one, so I could hang them near my computer and take note of them each day. I made use of something I learned in the Kate Crane class and a printed sheet of affirmations I created and:

Very happy with how this turned out, and as I have a TON of other useful affirmations from my sheet, I might use them on the little cards. Then again, I might not. If I do, it might feel like I am just repeating the same thing, IYKWIM, and I wouldn’t want to do that LOL!

Riddled with indecision – little collages

I keep referencing a project I have on the go on my side desk and because I am riddled with indecision on the card-box project I have decided to share that. It is going…better, I guess. I collected up all of my small samples from recent gel plate play (the “old walls” ones)

and used my metal edged ruler to tear them into more or less the same size.

My plan is to mount them all on an exact same size background and make a little accordion spine book. I had quite a large pile of bits I had torn off and they seemed too good to waste – I felt those + gel plate + Quin Gold would work well with all the backgrounds so

Yep. Happy with them. I am not great at collage, so this pile o’goodness is def. going to let me experiment and hone my skills maybe.

and adding in some of the things from the Fodder Challenge and various other bits I think they will be fun to make and in the end give me a sort of sample book where I can determine what I like, in terms of colour combos, groupings, etc. I also have a new set of line stamps I am keen to play with so it’ll all come together one way or another.

The card box is still swirling in my brain at the moment. I will get back to it when concrete inspiration strikes…