The leaves are turning – video

Posted: October 16, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Echidna Studios, gel press, Mooneys Trees, Stampin Up, timber embossing folder, Tutorial | Tags: Echidna Studios, gel press, gel printing, Tutorial, video | 7 Comments

As the leaves start to turn around me I brought a few green ones to the gel plate and printed them in the colours of autumn. I filmed as I printed so you can see a few different techniques. There is a brief appearance of backyard wildlife that must have come in on the freshly picked leaves. Let me know if you know what it was.

As you will see in the video I used a 5″x7″ gel plate and a mix of liquitex, decoart and sennelier acrylic paints to pull prints on printer paper.

Recently I have been turning 5×7 inch prints into card fronts with a strip left for a matching envelope. For today’s cards I attached the whole print to cardstock then used WaffleFlower rectangle dies to cut panels from each print, added twine to both panels then attached them to cream card bases. There are no strips left for the envelopes but twice as many cards. I have left them without sentiments but if needed I can tie a little sentiment tag onto the twine.

The print below is also featured in the video. I thought it would be fun to print leaves onto the Mooneys Trees cut out. I used the digital cutting file to cut from cream cardstock then picked up the leaf print from the gel plate. My new timber embossing folder from SU was the perfect background.

The close up below is the two step print, pulling first the background with the leaves still on the plate, then the leaf texture after they have been removed.

I think this final card might be my favourite. I didn’t plan it this way but it looks like that little leaf is falling away from the bigger one.

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted: October 9, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Echidna Studios, Mooneys Trees | Tags: digital stamps, Echidna Studios, sennelier watercolours | 3 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers. Hope you’re having a relaxing weekend maybe enjoying some autumn colour.

These trees are a digital image based on trees in a park not far from our home. What a treat to have such a personal image to paint. I used the simplified cut-out image in Friday’s blog post; this is the sketch version of Mooneys trees from Echidna Studios.

To see these trees beautifully painted with bister watercolour powders pop over here.

Mooneys Trees

Posted: October 6, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: baby blue leaf embossing folder, Echidna Studios, Mooneys Trees, Paper Rose, Taylored Expressions, weathered | Tags: Echidna Studios, gel press, gel printing, Paper Rose, Taylored Expressions | 6 Comments

If you live in the same city as me you might have walked past these trees, sat under them or perhaps photographed them. My daughter worked from her own photo to create some digital stamps in different forms. Check out the sketch style, outline, silhouette and simplified version in the Echidna Studios etsy store. The set is named Mooneys Trees because they are growing in Mooneys Bay park.

I used the simplified version to cut several pieces to gel print on. As you can see the trees fit on a 5.5″x4.25″ card base so I was able to print patterns on them on a 5×7 gel plate. If you are on IG you can watch a very short video of me printing the one above.

All the trees featured in this blog post were made by printing three layers of paint on top of each other, letting the paint dry in between layers. I varied the paint colours and texture on each layer. On the card above you might be able to pick out bubble wrap and textured cardboard patterns.

On the card directly above and below I used hessian (burlap) to add one texture as well as cardboard packaging on another layer. I also had plastic trays featuring criss-cross patterns to press on the gel plate.

Each printed tree cutout is attached to an embossed panel of cardstock. Only one of the tree cutouts is popped up because that task had too much of a fiddliness factor! The embossed background below is called ‘weathered’ from Taylored Expressions. The embossing folder used on the card at the top of the page is ‘baby blue’ from Paper Rose Studio and the embossing folder on the second card is from Close to my Heart but I don’t know the name; it creates the look of a wooden fence.

The two sentiments are from Taylored Expressions ‘simple strips background stamp‘ which stamps 18 sentiments to be cut out with the co-ordinating die. I really enjoyed making cards featuring local trees which are changing colour right now and of course I loved gel printing the cutouts to look autumnal.