Breaking out with the gelli plate

 It has been a while since I have done two posts in the same day, life has really been busy.  Who would have thought the gelli plate could be this much fun.  It very rarely disappoints me in my "what if" moods.  Instead of applying my paint with a brayer I decided this morning to apply it with my hands.  I suggest that if you are going to try this to be sure and use a "flow extender", this will keep the paint wetter as you manipulate it with your fingers.  I used "Golden" Acrylic Flow Release. approx 1 part to 1 part.  I used two colors parchment by Ceramcoat Delta and Chateau Moss by Accent.  I pulled on tissue paper.  I love the mountains and valleys that pulled out.

This is the second pull.  On the mornings I am not sure what direction I am going to go, this helps to stimulate my creative process, a little morning exercise for my muse, lol.  It is almost too hot to think or create but I am hanging in there and moving slow.  Happy Sunday, hugs

Romp in the snow

Last week I went with a friend to lunch, the restaurant is next door to JoAnns, in order to walk off some lunch we went in for a look around.  I love this Tim Holtz die but not enough to pay full price, JoAnns had them for 40% off, so I took it home.  I cut the deer from Italian wrapping paper I found on my excursion to San Francisco last month.  The background is a tissue I printed a snow scene on. Love the fun of it.  Trying to stay cool here it was a doozy yesterday.  Hope everyone has a nice Sunday, hugs

Eat Vibrant

A fun digi page for The Art Journal Caravan and a reminder to everyone to eat all those glorious fruits and veggies during this crazy heat wave.  No cooking going on in this house until it cools down, lol.  The chef is one of the Mannequins found on my wonderful excursion last week to the fixture store.  The background is a gelli pull and the fruit is from NLD "1001 Nights" at Scrapbook Graphics.  Hugs

Happiness

Hope everyone stays cool and inside this weekend as temps soar in the southwest.  This is a hybrid page from our Art Journal Page Swap.  The background is a gelli pull with distress inks and white acrylic wash drips.  I used some of my textured washi tape on this and a real twig.  Hope your weekend is filled with happiness, hugs

Christmas Cards

As hard as it is to believe the year is 1/2 over and we move into month 7, this is my month to start pulling together elements and papers I have collected since last Christmas for the next seasons greetings.  I am working this year with my gelli pulls and other patterned papers printed out on tissue and mounted on chipboard blocks, then embellishing with other wonderful elements.  I love the soft yet bold statements they are making.

The background is a gelli pull, I then brought in a Christmas Tree photo and layered it onto the paper with photoshop and then did some masking on the photo to feather out most of the background.  Martha Stewart dove and Lori Whitlock bow were the finishing touches.

The cards are 6"X4 1/4" and are the biggest size that will go with a standard 1st class stamp.  I found the envelopes at my local paper distributor on clearance for a song.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week.  We actually have rain falling with cool breezes, love the break in the heat, it is supposed to be back in the 90s tomorrow, LOL.  Hugs

Friends

Posting another of my hybrid pages for the Art Journal Swap.  The Zebras are from the Silhouette Library, flowers by Prima, handmade tag, background is David Smith "Gold" watercolor using a zebrastrip stencil and acrylic paint over it, then sealed with a fixative.  "Friend" is a rub-on and cannot remember whos it is.

Time - a winged bandit

Morning everyone, I have had two amazingly wonderful days back to back this week, I am feeling inspired and so very thankful.  This digi page is about my Wednesday.  For 15 years I have passed by a resale store fixture warehouse that is open to the public, each time I say to myself, I am going to go in there and just look around one of these days.  Well not only is necessity the mother of invention but also the spur to take you were you need to go.  I inherited a peg board stand that I have transformed into my paper punch storage, my nemesis has been finding the hooks that would work, as I deleted the primary hardware stores from my resource list, this place came to mind.  I was telling my friend and neighbor about it and she said, oh I have always wanted to go there too, so we made a date.  Early Wednesday morning we set out, now the funny part is that I chose the day they were in the final day of their move to a new facility, thanks goodness I phoned ahead.  We got there and it was a chaos of boxes and bins and in a state of confusion, 1/2 the personnel were at the old facility, so we were left to our own devices, we spent the better part of 3 hours roaming, calling out to each other as a treasure was found.  To our delight there were mannequins everywhere, some dressed, some not, in bins and cubby holes, even some in cages, ROFL.  I took so many photos I ran out of room and had to use my friends camera and still not everything was captured.  We will definitely be going back.  I did end up with some wonderful hooks that work for my peg board storage.  I especially love the legs hanging out of this bin and as I started to play with it this morning, this digi page happened, it makes me giggle and hope you get a chuckle from it too.  Happy Friday, hugs

A new "Hang Out"

Morning all, last night I was reflecting on the fact that this year is 1/2 over, wow and what a year it has been for me on so many levels.  July of this year will mean I have had my Silhouette Cameo for a year, it came with a learning curve I embraced head on.  Then in December I saw that beefing up my photoshop skills would enhance the Cameo even more and took that on.  In pursuing the photoshop knowledge I realized that my progress would be enhanced by joining an Art Journaling Group I found at Scrapbook Graphics, so the end of December I made the 1 year commitment and signed up. Whew! Little did I know what these seemingly small decisions would make in my love of creating, my love of sharing and growing.  So what does all that have to do with my relatively new "Hang Out" projects?  These began last month when I was cleaning the garage and came across a stash of clothes pins and had an idea on how to use them.  I wanted a project that would allow me to share some of the wonderful things I have learned with the Art Journaling Caravan.  In order for a project to stay active on my radar, it has to be able to evolve, it has to lend itself to many mediums, it has to serve a function and still be funny, interesting, inspiring and/or comforting and in particular this project had to simply use words and images.  So far they are standing up to the test.  I love that this one you cannot tell it uses a clothes pin unless you look at it from the back or side, the humming bird hides the pin.  The block is a Spellbinders die and it is sandwiched between 2 pieces of transparency to give it some protection (I am amazed I did not get a flare on this shot, yippee).  The sandwich is held together with two eyelets, one on each side where the ribbon is.  The humming bird is from Marta Van Eck at Deviant Art Scrap.  The coloring on the journaling block is Pan Pastel after blending I do spray it with a matt fixative.

 The bonus is I decided to extract the piece from my photo and it can also be used as an element on one of my digi pages.  The background is a gelli pull on tissue.

This is a side view of the "Hang Out", there is a transparency hangar attached to the back of the block, it slips over the clothes pin before the humming bird is attached to the base of the clothes pin, that means that the jouraling block will never slip off the pin.  So thanks for going the entire post with me, I know it was a little long this morning, I guess what I am saying in short is that you will probably see more of my "Hang Outs", lol, hugs and Happy Hump Day!

Best of Friends

A thinking of you card.  Memory Box tree and bird, EKSuccess photo corners, the Butterfly is from Studio Digilicious at Scrapbook Graphics, font is CK Blackout.  I love the black and white with just a snippet of earth tones.  Happy Monday

Friends - The AJC Journal Page Swap

Happy weekend everyone.  Our Journal Page Swap shipped out this week and so I decided I would share some of the ones I did for this special swap, it was soooo much fun to do.  This is an 8X10 page, the background is layers and layers of color.  It was about friends and support, I do not know what I would do in this life without my friends, sometimes in our day to day we forget just how much friendship means.  I created a lot of my own elements for the swap and this page is all mine, I learned a lot as I did these, tried some new things that worked and some of course did not but that is the fun of it all.  Love your friends today, hugs

Yikes

Well if you don't it is okay cause these were scary.  The tube dress, I don't even like putting on a turtle neck but this was just an exercise in torture.  It sure was fun seeing this image though, I was browsing through a Time Life book I picked up at the Library sale a couple of weeks ago.  She will definitely stay in my paper doll collection.  The background paper was sent to me by an internet friend and I thought it absolutely perfect for this thinking of you card, thanks Katrina. Happy Friday, hugs

borders and frames on printed papers

Creating borders and frames for you printed papers on the Gelli Plate is as simple as a mask.  I found this Italian Script paper at Flax in SFO on my day trip.  I cut a piece 8"X10", I then did a very light white wash with acrylic and water, let it dry.  I then cut a piece of card stock to 6X8 and placed it in the center of my gelli plate, then used "Red Oxide" by Liquitex, brayered it in and lifted my mask, then with a sea sponge went around the inside edges to soften it a bit.  When it had all dried I went around the outer edge with Pan Pastels "Red Iron Oxide Shade".  The creases can be ironed out but I left them cause I liked.

The paint was still wet so did a second pull on blue tissue.

A Fabulous Find

My neighbor had this stand in front of her garage yesterday, I guess she saw a twinkle in my eye when I saw it cause she said, "do you want it, I don't have room for it", as you can see I did not hesitate.  I have been storing my punches in see through plastic boxes, it simply did not work but want for another idea I just kept them there.  I hated to go on a search for a punch, even though I kept them some what organized, one would always be out of place or not in its box.  I do need to find a better hook but for now it works fine.  And by the way, I do think that punches breed in the middle of the night cause some of them I do not recognize, LOL.  Happy Wednesday

Hearts Rejoice

I had some tissue gelli pull scraps and could not toss them, lol.  I adhered them to a piece of card stock and then went over it with some gloss gel medium, then layered some string over the wet medium, let it dry and then did another coat, when that was completely dry, I cut the hearts out with an Ellison Die.  The background is also a tissue gelli pull and the font is CK Blackout.  I am so enjoying our little cooling down period, getting lots done, have a great day, hugs

Sleeping with the Butterflies

This month over at the AJC our port of call is the wonderful country of India, diverse, colorful and just chocked full of gorgeous creatures.  This is a digi page.  The butterfly background was gifted to me by my friend Christy, it is a paper napkin and I scanned it in to use with this page.  The map is from Dawn Inskip "Map Kit".  The Leopard is a National Geographic photo, I extracted the Leopard and then drew in a branch with my Wacom "Create".  Hope everyone has a happy happy week, we have begun here with a very manageable temp, even if it is a little overcast, can live with that. Hugs

A Male Birthday Card

I did a triptych for this card using a gelli pull sheet printed on tissue, so the wrinkles and creases you see are printed not actually in the sheet used to cover the blocks.  The sentiment blocks are from Barbara Williams and the light house is a stamped image from "Stamps Happen".  The card base is a linen cream.  Hope everyone has a happy Sunday, hugs

Butterfly Card

Happy weekend everyone.  This is one of my tissue gelli pull backgrounds with three Martha Stewart butterflies punched from vellum and colored with NeoII colors. We are scheduled for 108 here in N CA today, thank goodness for AC. Hugs

Stories

Another "Hang Out", I found some clothes pins that I had already painted the base ages ago for when I was teaching some classes, I was excited to find these as it cuts my prep time and my minutes have become precious lately.  I used an existing die cut from Memory Box "Poppies" and then added a couple of MS butterflies, all coloring was done with NeoII crayons and Tim Holtz Distress markers and used Pan Pastels for distressing.

this is a side view showing the tag, which says, "stories are the building blocks of friendship".  Happy Thursday everyone, hugs

Red shoes make my heart sing

I have been playing with some clothes pins I found while cleaning the garage a couple of weeks ago, they are fun, quick and easy when you feel you have to create but just don't have much time.  They are fun little messages to put around and make you or someone else smile.  This one I shared with a neighbor.

here is a side view, happy Wednesday, hugs

Slow is a good thing

Lol, I am enjoying in comparison to the last week a slow day, last week I was in more drs. offices and then to top it off 5 hours in ER with dh, he had a pain flare up and it was a rough one on everyone.  It seems to have run its course and we are all getting back to normal, we slept last night and only one drs. appt. today, I can handle that.  I have had Geckos coming into my life from everywhere it seems in the last week, which is a great thing because they are the symbol of new life and good luck.  Bring em on!

Last week I posted below a Gecko I found in a National Geographic gifted to me by a friend and I love the partial image of it, in fact I love it so much, I wanted my own hand colored image and here it is.  I used the below gecko as my template and created a blank, then colored in using Pan Pastels, Tim Holtz distress markers and Copic markers, they blend beautifully and it is such a pleasure working with these three mediums together.  The background paper is one of tissue pulls using the tubed water colors and Dylusion inks.
I hope everyone has a blessed week.  Hugs