Some New Paint

Posted: May 19, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Effulgence, Penny Black, Rockwell art, Tim Holtz | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Rockwell art, Tim Holtz | 4 Comments

Recently a friend introduced me to some new watercolour paints. It was during a class and she introduced us all to the new paints both by using them in her projects and by saying how much she loved them. Now it just so happened that my birthday fell soon after that class and suprise, surprise I received some new paints for my birthday! (And by ‘received’ I mean I asked my husband if he would like me to order myself some new paints as a gift from him. Of course he did!)

The new paints are from Rockwell Art, a Canadian company. They have a range of watercolour paints including a line they call ‘self evolving’ mineral pigments. The pigments granulate and break into different colours as you add water and the water moves the paint. Both cards featured today were painted with just one paint colour, ‘deep soul’. As I added water the paint separated into blues and burgandy-browns.

I applied the paint in curved stripes and sprinkled salt here and there while the paint was still wet to get the speckled effect.

Because I had worked from dark to light it seemed appropriate to add flowers looking towards the light. The die-cut flowers are from Tim Holtz ‘wildflower’ set and the stamped flowers below are the Penny Black ‘effulgence‘ cling stamps.

Stripes & Daisies

Posted: May 16, 2025 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Hand painted, Tim Holtz, Watercolour, wild flowers #1 | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Hand painted, Tim Holtz | 2 Comments

Back in February, I posted a pile of watercolour possibilities; you can see them here. The very bright strip on this card is one of the panels I painted during a watercolour technique class. I didn’t note down the exact paint colours but it would have been a limited palette of only 3 or 4. My guess is a yellow, a blue and a pink.

I used only half the painted panel on this card which means I can make another card or decorate the envelope. The background is so bright I liked crisp white daisies on top, it was a bit like putting together a summer outfit. The daisies were cut with Tim Holtz wildflowers dies and it looks like I cut 2 from white and one from cream cardstock. When I added the photos to this post I thought, ‘oh no! Did I add a cream daisy in?’ I pulled out the actual card and the daisies are indeed all white. Sadly the angle and lighting when I took the photo seems to be suggesting otherwise.

To just have one daisy was too stark so I added the other two to create a little more texture but no competing pattern or colour. I might put a sentiment on when I send it or I might not; we will see. Thank you for all your lovely messages about my Dad’s birthday and the card I made. The community of people who read my blog are so thoughtful; I always love hearing from you.

Zig Zag Print cards

Posted: May 28, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: gel press, Heather lowercase die set, Penny Black, Pink Fresh studio, Stencils, Tim Holtz, wild flowers #1, Zigs & zags | 3 Comments

Recently I posted several ’tiled’ collage cards on the blog and mentioned there would be more to come. Today’s cards once again feature gel printed panels arranged and decorated in two ways.

I used three different gel prints to ’tile’ the card above, a plain blue print, a print created with a zig-zag stencil and a print made with the an impression from an embossing folder. To tie together the dark blue, light blue and yellow + blue prints I added a navy wildflower (Tim Holtz) and navy ink splatter.

To create the square birthday card below I used ’tiles’ from the same print but rearranged them on the card front so they didn’t fit together like a jigsaw.

The brassy-gold paint used on the gel print prompted me to die-cut letters, stars and the word birthday from a similar colour cardstock to create a sentiment. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Pink & Blue Squares

Posted: May 18, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, Dies, gel press, gift card pocket, Penny Black, Tim Holtz, wild flowers #1 | Tags: collage, gel printing, Penny Black creative dies, Tim Holtz | 3 Comments

As mentioned in previous posts my stash of gel prints is considerable. I am always on the look out for ways to use them. Large prints are great for covers on handmade books; I use many smaller prints for card fronts and collage.

These two collage cards are made from four or five different gel prints. I punched the squares with a 1 3/8″ punch then fiddled around with the layout until I was happy with it. Because I love things to match all the prints had some blue in them and there is some repetition of pink as well.

The prints were part of my stash and were not made specifically for these cards so some have patterns and others were probably second or third pulls to clean off a plate. Once I had them arranged to my satisfaction I die-cut Tim Holtz wildflowers and added a tiny Penny Black tag. You’ll see more of this style in the next few weeks as I made them in several different colour combinations. Those of you who know me might have noticed the dark blue splatter on the both cards; I always think a bit of splatter ties thing s together.

Leaves and Flowers-Cut & Printed

Posted: April 29, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: gel press, Tim Holtz, vault wildflowers | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Tim Holtz | 9 Comments

When fresh flowers for gel printing are not readily available, there are always the die-cut ones. In making today’s cards I gel printed patterns using die-cut flowers and leaves and a mix of blue, green and white paints.

Both the flowers on the card above and the stem of leaves on the card below are from Tim Holtz ‘vault wildflowers’ die set. The prints are grungy because I built up some layers of outlines on the plate before adding an image transfer text layer to the final print.

To finish the cards I added a cardstock flower or stem of leaves to match the partial prints in the background.

I did both prints on paper not cardstock then attached them to card bases with double sided adhesive. When I am spending a day or half day gel printing I will often do many prints on paper and a handful on cardstock or thicker paper. I never know which ones are going to be the favourites but I do know the session will be full of ‘just a couple more prints’ moments.

You can see when comparing these two cards the impact of adding some white paint to the mix. I used the same blue and green acrylic paints for both panels but the one above was toned down with white brayered onto the gel plate with the green and blue. So while you to print fresh flowers, die-cut yourself some from paper or duralar and see what you can come up with.

Tiles

Posted: April 26, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, gel press, Tim Holtz, vault wildflowers | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Penny Black stamps, Tim Holtz | 5 Comments

Do you have more gel prints than you know what to do with? Are some of them not very interesting or only partial prints? I definitely answer yes to both those questions. I keep finding though, that the grungy prints make really nice backgrounds for journal pages and cards.

I have many of my gel prints sorted by colour so I pulled several 6 x 6 prints from the blue folder and used them on a few different cards. I also had green, yellow and gold toned prints on hand to make some multicoloured cards; I’ll share them another day. To create this card I cut the blue gel prints with a rectangle die then arranged them like tiles over a navy background before trimming end to fit.

I added a die-cut flower from the Tim Holtz vault wildflowers set and a little Penny Black sentiment. If you like blue then maybe this multi-print collage will please you as much as it did me! This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Butterfly Journal Page

Posted: April 22, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: gel press, grafix, Handmade book, perspective butterfly die, Tim Holtz | Tags: gel press, gel printing, grafix, Handmade book, Tim Holtz | 6 Comments

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 hand but more importantly I end up with a stack of prints which co-ordinate with each other because the colours and sometimes patterns are repeated.

I used the Tim Holtz ‘perspective butterfly‘ die to create a reusable duralar mask for gel printing. The circle patterns were made with the Carabelle Studio ‘accumulation de ronds’ stencil. The ‘corduroy’ looking pattern on both the butterfly and the circle page was made with a piece of textured wall paper. I completed this page quite a while ago but didn’t know if it was finished as I hadn’t added any words anywhere. Maybe that will change one day but I love it just the way it is. What you can’t see is the warm gold shimmer from the gold acrylic paint used to pull the prints.

The butterfly print was on paper but the circle and stripe print was on tissue and was fairly fragile. I was able to glue most of it down successfully with gel medium but I don’t mind the ragged edges where it tore. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Greenery Collage Cards

Posted: April 3, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, Darkroom Door, Dies, Finetec paints, gift card pocket, global postmarks, Leaves, measuring tape, Mixed Media, paris postcard, Penny Black, Tim Holtz, wild flowers #1 | Tags: collage, Darkroom Door stamps, Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Mixed Media, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tim Holtz | 6 Comments

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 postcard stamp, a background with the Measuring Tape stamp, sentiments and postmarks all from Darkroom Door.

Once again I used some cute dies from Penny Black to cut tickets, file divider, tag and leaves adding blending around the edges for the vintage look.

The scrap of cheesecloth, the lace and the grosgrain ribbon were all found around here, maybe the ribbon is actually vintage; it looks a bit discoloured from age which meant it co-ordinated well.

The lovely Queen Anne’s lace die is from the Tim Holtz ‘wildflowers #1 set.

I did make my own little postage stamps for the postcards because I’m still in love with faux postage. These ones had to be quite small so I didn’t use a die I just punched tiny holes with a needle to perforate the edges. You can see a bit of splatter here and there with ivory paint and there are touches of gold watercolour paint on the petals of a few flowers too!

This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Gel Printed Pods

Posted: March 25, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: artsy stems, framed fern, gel press, Lavinia, online class, Penny Black, Tim Holtz | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Lavinia, online class, Penny Black creative dies, Tim Holtz | 3 Comments

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 the photo but some of the paint was metallic so the print has some shimmer and shine on it.

I looked through my botanical dies and gold cardstock in order to fine co-ordinating elements for the cards. On the card above I used the ‘framed fern’ die from Penny Black and on the card below the die featured is from Tim Holtz artsy stems die set.

I hear my gel plate calling to me so hopefully I will soon dedicate a few days to happy printing. If you are looking for a beginner gel printing class or a refresher please check out Gel Print Journey. This post includes affiliate links from Ecstasy Crafts, Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Artsy Alcohol Ink on the Gel Plate

Posted: September 26, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, artsy stems, Darkroom Door, gel press, Tim Holtz | Tags: Alcohol Ink, Darkroom Door stamps, gel press, gel printing, Ranger Alcohol Ink | 4 Comments

I have a couple of cards made from alcohol prints on the gel plate which is the technique feature in my last two youtube videos. I love the colours in this one and the funky patterns made using die-cut artsy stems, which are Tim Holtz dies.

The technique used in the recent youtube videos involves stencils not die-cuts but the effect is the same when the die-cuts are cut from stencil film or similar thin non-porous material. I use films from Grafix, either matte duralar or craft plastic.

I can’t remember the exact inks I used for the panel above but my guess is a deep blue such as glacier as well as some gold mixative or alloy ink. I pulled the print with the transparent gold paint used in this video so the panel has a subtle shimmer to it in real life. I loved the pattern so much I decided to add the narrow strip of gold but no sentiment.

The second card was also made using alcohol inks on the gel plate but is a more grungy print due to the mix of green and cream paint used to pull the print and the mix of yellow, green and blue alcohol inks used to make the pattern on the gel plate.

Rather than use the whole panel I added a simple blue gel printed piece to the top of the card front and once again a gold strip of cardstock. The sentiment is from the Darkroom Door happy birthday set.