Printed & Stamped
Posted: May 8, 2023 Filed under: Darkroom Door, French Script, Gazette, gel press, pocket watch, tickets, Wildflowers Vol 1 | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, gel press, gel printing 13 Comments
Now the grass has turned green I am looking forward to gel printing with fresh plants again. I have used some dried ones over the winter and also some I purchased but nothing beats pulling a few grasses, leaves or flowers from the yard to print immediately. On the card above and below I pressed grasses into blue paint on a gel plate, removed the surrounding paint with paper then picked up the whole print with white and yellow.

To turn the printed panel into a card I added stamping with Darkroom Door stamps in a collage style with a dark blue ink and attached the paper print to the card base with double sided adhesive sheets.

I used the same process to create another collage card adding stamping over a feather gel print. The Darkroom Door fine detail stamps once again add to the grungy printed background.

I left the cards blank to be used for any occasion. As you can see in both cards, the gel print isn’t the main feature, nor is the stamping; it’s the combination of grungy background and stamped elements that make these work for me. Depending on the size of the gel printed sheet it is usually possible to add a co-ordinating strip of the print to the envelope as well.
There are lessons on gel printing with grasses and feathers in my soon to be released online Gel Printing Journey class; I can’t wait to invite you in!
(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp & Ecstasy Crafts)

Both of these are awesome, Heather! Can’t wait to see how you did them.
What I love is the delicate look of these, as those all just magically flowed together. Beautiful cards.
Tish
Thank you. I love the delicate details I can get on the gel plate. It’s amazing
Heather,I just love what you have done with this print. I am much the visual learner and wondered if you have a utube video showing your technique? Have a wonderful day! Joandirmyer@yahoo.com
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Hi Joan, thanks so much. This is one of my favourite techniques on the gel plate. It is covered in my new online class which is almost ready for release. There is a video on YouTube showing the technique with leaves not grasses. https://youtu.be/1HgqTIWC7jQ
These are so cool! I hadn’t thought about using fresh foliage for printing, great idea and results! Thanks for taking the time to share!
Both are beautiful. Thanks for this idea. I have many dried flowers too and haven’t used them in a long time, but will do it again.
Thanks Edna,
I did use dried grasses over the winter as I didn’t have fresh but they sometimes leave seeds in the paint. Dried flowers can work depending how strong they are, sometimes they are too fragile and end up breaking when I press on them. Using fresh is easier.
Both are beautiful. Thanks for the idea as I’ve done it before but not in a while. Also have a lot of dried flowers that I can use again too.
for some reason my comments never go through. Hope you get this one, love your cards.Edna Burgess
Love these! Getting on my mind to get out the gel plate again, just the inspiration needed!
Besides your wonderful gelli prints what makes these so special is your background stamping! I have had issues stamping over paint from a gelli print. So I’ll guess maybe you used paint. Great stamp choices to finish these off. And I do hope you will advertise when you are about to begin your class!
To fantastic gelli plate pieces and removing the excess blue paint and then dded different colours before pulling the print is a great idea and the results are wonderful Heather. x