Blue & Green Leaf Trails

Posted: May 7, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, gel press, Lavinia, leaf trails stencil, Taylored Expressions | Tags: Alcohol Ink, gel press, gel printing, Lavinia, Taylored Expressions | 4 Comments

There are many ways to use stencils on the gel plate, one being with alcohol inks rather than acrylic paint. When I use alcohol inks I do pull the print with acrylic paint but most of the colour you see is from the initial layer of alcohol inks.

You can lay the stencil down then add alcohol inks or do it the other way round, dropping the stencil onto the wet alcohol ink. Some gel-printers add a layer of hand sanitiser first but that isn’t what I did to make these prints. I’m not 100% sure but I believe I lay the stencil down on top of a layer of alcohol ink for these prints. I use some isopropyl alcohol to help the inks move further and facilitate some blends between colours. I also use an air blower to push the ink around and speed up the drying process.

The pretty twirly patterns are from the Lavinia ‘leaf trails’ stencil. Lavinia has lovely organic stencils which often feature in my gel prints. I can’t remember the exact alcohol inks I used but the technique works with all sorts of colour combos so pick your faves. No surprise to see blue in my mix. I have mentioned before that I often gel print on printer paper but these panels I pulled with thick cardstock so when it came to making cards I just cut some rectangles from the print and added them to white card bases along with sentiments from Taylored Expressions.

Floral Collage Cards

Posted: April 8, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: A Pocket Full, Collage cards, Dies, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions, this way | Tags: collage, Darkroom Door stamps, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Taylored Expressions | 2 Comments

The collage and ephemera cards just keep coming. Today’s cards feature old book page collage overlaid with one layer of a floral napkin. I have a few collaged ‘mini masterboards’ made so I can cut elements or backgrounds out when I need them. For the card above I picked the rusty orange from the napkin to be the accent colour.

I recently bought a notch punch so I can create file dividers of any size; in the card above I made the blank orange one a little larger to show behind the floral & collage one. I added tickets stamped and die-cut, a scrap of hessian and a cut out from an old Betty Crocker ‘Good and Easy Cook Book‘!

On the second card I used an aged book page as the background and added the paper napkin layer to the mini notebook page with some mulberry paper for framing and contrast. The little green postage stamp is real and the vintage label is stamped.

For the recent collage cards I have pulled out some supplies that I’d almost forgotten, the pretty label border stamps, the mulberry paper and the ‘office’ type dies from Penny Black are in the current rotation.

The file dividers on the card below remind me of a recipe card box which is why it ended up with the little recipe book snippet on it. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ‘Simple Strips – Thanks’ but I chopped it up to add to the file tabs.

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.

Bubble Flowers

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

Roses Stencilled

Posted: January 29, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Echidna Studios, gel press, Roses digital stamp set | Tags: Alcohol Ink, Darkroom Door stamps, Echidna Studios, gel press, gel printing, Taylored Expressions | 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.

Collage Skates

Posted: December 13, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Dies, gel press, let's skate, Penny Black | Tags: gel press, gel printing, Penny Black creative dies, Taylored Expressions | 1 Comment

This was one of last year’s Christmas cards made during my collage Christmas card class. All the strips of colour are from gel prints. If you look closely you can see some grungy texture and pattern. None of the prints were amazing by themselves but when combined I quite liked the mix and pattern.

I used the Penny Black die set ‘let’s skate’ to cut two skates from the collage panel then popped them up on an embossed panel and added a Taylored Expressions sentiment from her ‘simple strips’ Christmas stamp.

I made many collage cards last year because I have so many gel prints to collage and many dies that worked for cutting. There were trees, bells, stars, poinsettia, stockings, baubles and more trees! I hope this is another idea you’ll try with your gel prints or any patterned papers or tapes. Washi tapes work well because the adhesive is already there!

Holly Leaves – foiled

Posted: December 7, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Echidna Studios, holly leaves, Taylored Expressions | Tags: Echidna Studios, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, sennelier watercolours, Taylored Expressions | 5 Comments

The foiling on these cards didn’t work properly yet here they are on display on my blog. I decided the foiling error was pretty enough to use anyway, I just can’t tell you for sure how to achieve this accidental look! The images are new digital stamps from Echidna Studios, called ‘Holly Leaves‘. I printed both images on hot pressed watercolour in my laser printer then foiled with gold foil. Whether it was a smudgy print or a different type of foil I’m not sure but foil attached to the background as well as the outline image.

As you can see, I was still able to watercolour the images using Sennelier watercolour paints. Even though the camera didn’t capture it, the whole outline image is foiled plus some speckling in the background.

I’m not sure that holly comes in the blue green colour I chose for the card above but I like a bluey green so I keep choosing it on my projects. The green shown below might be more realistic.

I added some gold metallic thread then finished both cards with Taylored Expressions sentiment strips.

I have also painted these holly images without foiling but I think this post is long enough so I will share those cards another day. I’ve noticed lately that when my posts are quite long an ad appears before the end of the post. Sadly I have no control over that. If I don’t want ads I have to pay extra to not have them. Just think of my posts like a magazine page, ads do pop up here and there.

I don’t make money from the ads but I do make a small commission if you click one of my links from Foiled Fox or Scrap’N’Stamp. When you buy a digital stamp or cutting file from Echidna Studios both my daughter and I get very excited and congratulate each other! You might have heard the line, ‘When you buy from a small business, an actual person does a little happy dance.’ We dance!

Christmas Filigree

Posted: November 23, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Christmas filigree, Dies, Echidna Studios, joy of giving, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions | Tags: digital stamps, Echidna Studios, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Taylored Expressions | 2 Comments

I am pretty excited about these new images. I think filigree patterns are very pretty and once I got the gist of it had a lovely time designing a bell, a star and a finial ornament. I thought it made sense to have a solid background to show off the filigree and, tada, the Christmas filigree digital stamp and cut file set came to be! This set is now in the Echidna Studios store along with three more new sets and some updated Christmas sets from last year. It’s beginning to look more like Christmas every day.

I think the bell is my favourite of the three images and will come in handy making wedding cards as well as Christmas. I wanted to show off the designs on dark backgrounds but when in comes to photographing shimmery gold, embossing on dark green or navy and the high contrast of cream cardstock as well, I can’t always nail it.

So let me tell you the bells are sitting on dark green panels embossed with Spellbinders ‘forever green’ folder. The green panel on the left below is also embossed with that folder but the one on the right is embossed with the Anna Griffin ‘regal braid’ folder. The star cards at the end of this very long post are on navy blue backgrounds and it is again a little tricky to see one base is embossed with the ‘speckles/snowfall‘ folder and the other with the Taylored Expressions ‘sheet music‘ folder.

I decorated the finials and bells with a mix of die cut foliage from Penny Black including the ‘joy of giving‘ set.

As the finial is such a long thin shape I made the card a little larger than usual, around 6″x4.5″.

I created the star cards without foliage but found suitable sentiment from PB and Taylored Expressions.

I think all three designs would make lovely tree ornaments either stacked to give them extra stability or cut from thick acrylic or thin board on a laser cutter. I don’t have a laser cutter but it is possible to book time on one at the library; if get some cut I will definitely show them here on the blog.

Thanks for scrolling all the way through this long post; I really appreciate you visiting the blog. Have a great day!

Today’s post features affiliate links to Scrap’n’Stamp. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Coniferous Silhouettes

Posted: November 1, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Coniferous Silhouettes, Echidna Studios | Tags: Echidna Studios, Ranger Distress inks, Taylored Expressions | 4 Comments

You know me; I am always up for more tree stamps and the latest release from Echidna Studios is made to order. No, really, it is made to order; I asked my daughter for some evergreens and she designed this digital stamp from one of her own photos. It is called Coniferous Silhouettes and includes five different versions: ‘detailed’ which is the one in the card above, ‘solid’ which you can see in the card further down in the post, ‘simplified’ version not shown in this post and two versions with just tree tops – no trunks.

I printed the images on neenah solar white cardstock with my laser printer then foiled with black foil to make them darker. The foil resisted the blended distress ink just as heat embossing would do. You can see how I masked and blended in the short video below.

Even though the cards look very similar you can see some light through the trees in the image above whereas the image below is solid.

Back in the olden days I blended ink on many scenes like this using sponges; I must admit I like the smoother and faster application of the blending brushes.

Several blog readers have expressed interest in a how-to video to introduce you to using digital stamps and cutting files. We are working on getting that done for you.

Both cards with dark blue skies feature unchartered mariner and broken china distress inks; I like to have a lighter ink for the foreground snow and to blend around the moon. The card below was my test run and it features tumbled glass and peacock feathers distress inks. You can see I blended across the moon in the card below. I did it to cover a smudge but I think it looks a bit more realistic this way; maybe I’ll go back and add a light blend to the other two moons.

Little did I know that I would have snow on the ground when posting these cards but it’s there!

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

Printed Baubles – short video

Posted: October 24, 2023 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Echidna Studios, entwined, gel press | Tags: Alcohol Ink, Echidna Studios, gel press, Penny Black stamps, Stampin Up, Taylored Expressions | 6 Comments

Last month I posted a sped up video on instagram showing how I printed alcohol ink patterns through the entwined stencil onto my 5″x7″ gel plate. I planned to add it to youtube as a vertical ‘short’ because not all my blog readers and youtube followers are on instagram. Sadly I discovered a ‘short’ on youtube must be 60 seconds or shorter. My sped up video was #shortnotshort at 77seconds. I decided to post it on horizontally on youtube anyway so I could share it here along with the cards I made from the panel.

The print you will see in the video above shows how I created the alcohol ink pattern through a stencil then pulled the print on printer paper with acrylic paint. I know there is no narration along with this very short sped up video but I go through the process in more detail with less speed in a couple of other recent videos here and here.

To make the print sturdy enough to die cut I used double sided adhesive to attach the print to thick cardstock. I used dies from a stampin up set ‘holiday ornaments’ which is possibly retired. I borrowed the set because I thought the finial style suited the symmetry of the print.

As I often do with a patterned busy element I embossed white panels to be the background. I used Taylored Expressions sheet music embossing folder, an Spellbinders in the pines folder and the one below that I don’t know the name of. The little sentiments from my well used Penny Black set, ‘holiday snippets’.

The card bases and embossed panels are Neenah solar white 110lb cardstock. That is four more cards added to my Christmas card pile which is definitely not a big enough pile just yet. At class today a few people said they had finished all their Christmas cards, but others were yet to start so I feel happy somewhere in the middle!

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

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 | 5 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.