Hello Leaves and Lines

Posted: April 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: cricut, Echidna Studios, gel press, leaves and lines | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

This distressed multicoloured look is one of my favourite gel printing looks. I don’t know that I could recreate it but I usually get at least a couple of these aged looking prints during a gel printing session. The pattern is achieved using a stencil laid over paint on the gel plate. This stencil is called ‘leaves and lines‘ and the digital file is available from Echidna Studios etsy store. To make today’s card I cut a 5″x 6″ stencil from Grafix matte duralar using my Cricut. I also cut it as a larger stencil which I used for a print you can see here.

You can see on this print that I used a maroon paint and a bright blue paint; the darker blue is a mix of the two colours. I pulled the print with a pale gold paint so the surface has a bit of shimmer to it.

Because the background is very busy I placed the Penny Black ‘hello’ die-cut sentiment on a strip of vellum to stop it from getting lost in the leaves and lines. 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.

The Washing Line

Posted: April 10, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: City stacks, Concord & 9th, Echidna Studios, gel press, washing line | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

I’m not sure that this is strictly collage although it is all made from cut out papers glued together. I guess it is more like paper piecing, something I rarely do. But gel printing has me looking for all sorts of ways to use my printed papers. The ‘washing line‘ is a digital stamp from Echidna Studios and cutting out all the clothes took me way back to my paper doll days. I printed the washing line image on the seven different coloured gel prints then proceeded to pick colours for all the clothes.

I looked through my gel prints; I have quite a few sorted into folders by colour. Most of the prints used for this panel were from my Gel Print Journey online class. The yellow dress was cut from a gradated print with a faint white daisy pattern on it. The pink and orange ‘tie dye’ was a print achieved my pressing cling wrap on the gel plate, the socks and top were from a blue & burgandy blended gel print. The blue background print was a patchy blue and white print where I hadn’t rolled off my brayer before rolling resulting in the big white blob of paint – just right for a cloudy blue sky. When it came to gluing everything onto the blue background I just adhered the cut-outs over the printed outline.

The digital image includes two patches of grass below the posts but I wanted more so I drew another strip of grass on a green gel print and filled the stretch under the washing line. I just happened to have the perfect sentiment from the Concord & 9 ‘City Stacks‘ stamp set. 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. If you buy from Echidna Studios my daughter and I get very excited!

By the Garden Gate

Posted: March 28, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, garden fence, Inktense pencils, Stampin Up | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

The Garden Fence set is an Echidna Studios digital stamp set that I designed and my daughter digitised. The set includes a gate, three pots and a grass & flowers image. Each image is stackable which means you can arrange your own garden design with pots and gate beside each other, behind each other or even on top of each other if that sounds fun!

Both the gate scene above and the individual pots on the tag shown later in this post were printed on hot press watercolour paper on an ink jet printer. In the past I have always printed on a laser printer but my daughter recently bought a second hand printer to test some colour printing of our designs. We printed some black outline images to see how they were to watercolour.

The gate design above I coloured with inktense watercolour pencils and blended the ink with water and a very fine brush. The ink from the printer did bleed a bit so you can some some grey tones here and there. Because I used very little water I was able to keep the bleeding to a minimum. I received the lovely ‘exposed brick‘ embossing folder for my birthday from a couple of friends who know just what I like. It seemed an appropriate background for the slightly aged garden gate.

On this little tag I used a mix of inktense pencils and Zig clean color real brush markers; again there was some bleeding when I added water but no so much as to make me stop colouring and blending. All that to say if you have an ink jet printer it might be worth printing and watercolouring some images just to see how it goes.

I’ve been making some vintage style collage cards lately (I’ll share them on the blog soon) so I decided to find a book page as background for my watercoloured tag. I blended vintage photo and antique linen inks around the background and tag and added some typewriter alphabet stamping on both. Unfortunately I stamped the alphabet upside down on my background but I continued with my card anyway! I like the pairing of old fashioned conservatory with modern little pots just for fun.

I’ve featured the Garden Fence set before; take a look here and here. 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.

Zinnias

Posted: March 21, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Coloured pencil, Echidna Studios, pastel pencils, zinnias | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

As the title suggests I have zinnias to share today. This pair is just one of seven images in the new digital set, Zinnias, from Echidna Studios. There is a bunch of five blooms, the pair shown on my card and some single blooms. All the images can be layered which means you can create your own bunches or rows of zinnias for printing.

I worked on Montreal Canal Paper, a textured paper made from cotton rag. In the past I’ve used it for watercolour, this time I used my new pastel pencils. The pad of paper I used has six different colours; I chose the green as it gave me an appropriate background. The texture in the paper holds the soft pastel well. I printed the two zinnias on the paper using my laser printer.

I kept the colour scheme limited and enjoyed blending two or three colours together to get diffferent colours and tints. From the Faber Castell set of Pitt pastels I used two greens -165 &170, red -194, blue -157 and white -101. I did most of the blending by adding one colour over another but further softened the blends at the end with a burnishing pencil.

As I often do, I searched for photo inspiration before colouring and found some deep burgandy colours among the many options. I think I might plant some in my garden this spring; the new digital stamps have inspired me. Let me know if you have success with zinnias in your garden.

Standing Ducks

Posted: March 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, sennelier watercolours, standing ducks | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

Introducing ‘standing ducks‘, a lovely digital stamp set from Echidna Studios. The weather has turned much warmer round here so there are puddles instead of snow to be seen; the type of weather where you might see ducks standing or swimming around. It is too early for ducklings but in the past we have had to slow down and stop for duck families on the busy road behind our house.

I printed both ducks from the set on hot pressed watercolour paper then painted them with Sennelier watercolour paints. I added some finishing touches with coloured pencils. I also printed the left facing duck on some pastel paper as I received a set of pastel pencils for my birthday and have started learning how to use them. As you can imagine pastel is very soft so it is fun to blend but easy to smudge. When I have done a little more learning and practicing I hope to share some pastel pencil colouring.

This card is another ‘larger than usual card’ measuring just over 5″ x 7″. The piece of watercolour paper I printed on had one deckled edge so I tore the other three edges to keep a deckled look round the whole panel.

Bubble Flowers

Posted: February 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: bubble flowers, cricut, Echidna Studios, gel press, grafix, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Aren’t these happy flowers? The design is called ‘bubble flowers‘ for obvious reasons and is one of mine. I was inspired by a vintage brooch. The digital design is available in the Echidna Studios etsy store and can be cut on a digital cutting machine as I have for today’s cards. It can also be printed, foiled and cut as a stencil for blending or gel printing. Do you get the idea you’ll be seeing more of the bubble flowers?

I cut the bubble flowers from thin white cardstock and you can probably tell there are some tiny cuts necessary. If I went much smaller than this I started to lose some of the bubbles so I kept it big enough for a 5″x7″ card.

The backgrounds for both cards are gel prints. The multicoloured one above was created with alcohol inks then pulled with white acrylic paint. It was so pretty I didn’t want to cut it up or cut it down, hence the large card with a layer over the top.

The second background panel was all done with acrylic paints and a selection of objects to add texture. I can see one of my die-cut stamps, some chocolate tray shapes, lid shapes and other found textures. I cover a wide range of techniques in my Gel Print Journey class and I think this might have been a print I did just as we finished filming. All my online classes are currently on sale 40% off by using the code LEAPYEAR40 at checkout or by simply clicking the link above.

Because the bubble flowers are a delicate and detailed cut-out I used Grafix Artist Tac to glue them down. Once I had pressed the image onto the background I ran it through my die-cutting machine to burnish it. (quicker than doing it by hand). The sentiment is one I totally agree with and is from Taylored Expressions ‘In & Out Birthday’ set. Thank you for your lovely messages about our family’s February festivities; it was fun to share them with you in my previous post.

Tulips & more tulips

Posted: February 21, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, sennelier watercolours, tulip background, tulip set, Watercolour | Tags: , , , , , | 11 Comments

If there are tulips already blooming where you live you must let me know in the comments! It will be another two or three months before they bloom around here. All the more reason to have some blooming here on the blog. The group you see on the card above are part of a new digital stamp called ‘tulip background‘ from Echidna Studios. The whole image is a landscape oriented design and I printed it on hot pressed watercolour paper to be 8½” wide which gave me plenty of choice when deciding which part to use on a portrait oriented card.

I used Sennelier watercolours to paint the design using various mixes of four different reds and pinky red paints. I also used one of the reds to give the green paint a more muted realistic tone. Once I had painted all the tulips and stems I used polychromos pencils to add extra shading and shadow. This is a technique I learnt from Kathy Racoosin and it always adds to the finished panel. I ruled a narrow black line around the panel to frame it.

The flowers below are from a co-ordinating digital set simply called ‘tulip set‘ also from Echidna Studios. The set includes three individual tulips. I didn’t paint this one, my daughter did, using watercolour pencils. She also fussy cut each of the three tulips to create a pretty layered arrangement.  This post includes an affiliate link to The Foiled Fox, if you use it I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Calla Lilies

Posted: February 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: calla lilies, Coloured pencil, Echidna Studios | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

Time for new digital stamps from Echidna Studios and these two, Calla Lilies, are stunners. Once again my daughter drew the designs from one of her own photos. I printed this first one on kraft paper and coloured it with Faber Castell polychromos pencils.

My palette was quite limited as I completed most of the colouring with a pink, a green and a white. When most of the colouring was complete I used a darker pink, a darker green and a black to add final shadows and shading.

I used watercolour techniques to paint the second lily design after printing it on hot pressed watercolour paper.

I found a photo on line to give me some colour inspiration and worked with watercolour brush pens. to get the wine colour I mixed purple and red on a glass mat then picked up the ink with a paintbrush. When using two colours in this way it is easy to get different tones for the shadows and variations just by adding more of either the purple or the red to the mix. I used one green mixed with a small amount of the same red brush pen ink to give me a more muted tone.

To see another colour scheme and orientation pop over to Echidna Studios instagram and take a look. I chose not to add sentiments even though they would make nice Easter cards. I think they would also be suitable sympathy cards so for now I’m leaving them blank. This post includes affiliate links to The Foiled Fox, if you use them I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Roses Stencilled

Posted: January 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Echidna Studios, gel press, Roses digital stamp set | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Last week I featured the Roses digital stamp set from Echidna Studios by cutting the rose trio from cardstock with my cricut. I have also cut dura-lar stencils with the same digital files. I cut them in different sizes for gel printing, blending or working with alcohol inks. To create both the pink and the orange panel I used alcohol inks on a gel plate and either dropped the rose trio stencil on top of the alcohol inks or lay the stencil down on the gel plate then added the inks. Both techniques work but by adding the alcohol ink after the stencil you have a bit more control of your ink placement. But you know alcohol inks; they kind of have a mind of their own.

On the card above you can see two patterns. The roses stencil was laid down on the inked gel plate first so you can see the whole design. The Finnabair/Prima ‘floral net’ stencil was laid over the top so there are snatches of that pattern around the edges where it made contact with the alcohol inks. If you are interested in using alcohol inks on the gel plate, check out my video here.

You can see from the photo at the top of the post that the pink one is a smaller card; it’s 5″ x3¾. This print doesn’t include a second stencil pattern but does have some isopropyl alcohol splatter adding interest. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ‘In & Out Birthday’ set.

The sentiment below is from the Darkroom Door ‘Happy Birthday‘ set.

I used Waffle Flower A2 layers and Additional A2 layers die sets to cut the narrow border frames. These two sets have been so useful for cutting out panels and sentiments and adding very neat and correctly sized mats.

I’ll be back tomorrow to show you my project from Craft Roulette. Thank you to those of you who tuned in on youtube. It was lovely to have you there. Today’s post features affiliate links to The Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Roses on gel printed collage

Posted: January 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, gel press, Mixed Media, Roses digital stamp set | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Unsurprisingly I have built up quite a supply of gel prints. Recently I turned a bunch of them into collaged panels. You can see in the photo below the simple collage I created by gluing torn strips of three different prints in a brick-like arrangement. To make things easy I tore the strips the width of my ruler so they are all 1¼” wide.

Once I trimmed the collage panel to card sized pieces I chose a trio or roses that I designed for printing and cutting and cut it from blue cardstock using my cricut. It is one of three designs in a set called ‘Roses‘ which is available in the Echidna Studios etsy store.

When you cut a design on the cricut or with a die you often have inside pieces you can discard or use to fill in the cut out shape. I cut the rose trio from dark blue and from pink patterned paper then saved the inside pieces from the pink to inlay the blue outline.

I added embossed sentiments from the Penny Black set ‘ever thanks‘ and some embossing around one of the panels with Ranger rose gold embossing powder.

I was able to cut two smaller square panels which I also make into cards featuring the Penny Black die, ‘harmonious’. When you look at the gel prints themselves they don’t look all that fancy but when combined this way I really like the play of colours and textures.

I created a few more A4 panels from collaged gel prints and they are waiting for inspiration. I will share them here once I have a plan for them. 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.

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