Gel Plate Printing the April 2022 Moodboard - Mixed Media Kit
Hey, y’all! Welcome back to the Tres Jolie Blog!
This week I am focusing on the Mixed Media Kit, and while I do make a few sample projects, my focus is really going to be on what a gel plate can do! I find gel printing to be incredibly addictive – I can sit for hours without noticing time passing while I peel paper after paper off.
I do manage to add some mood board inspiration in as well. I love citrus, not so much eating or drinking (I don’t care for sour), but for reasons I can’t explain, I love how citrus fruits LOOK – so I made a cut file that finds it’s way onto the gel plate! Check out my video to see all the ways I used the gel printing plate and the mixed media kit this month.
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April 2022 Moodboard:
April’s mood board challenge rules:
- You can create any type of project for the challenge.
- You MUST say what you were inspired by.
- You MUST include the twist in your design.
- The twist for this month is SPRINGTIME MADNESS.
- We would love to see you USE AT LEAST 1 of Tres Jolie’s products on your projects but it isn’t required to play along.
- It MUST be a new project.
- Place your entries in the April 2022 challenge folder on the Tres Jolie Kit Club Cafe Facebook page. This challenge ends on April 30th, 2022 at 11:59 pm CST. All entries must be in this folder to be eligible for the prize (to have everyone eligible to win, we are limited the same winner to once every 3 months).
Papers:
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Here are a couple images of some of my finished papers – of course by “finished” I mean from this session! I may or may not decide to add more in the future! You can see my Citrus Cut File (mostly) survived being used over and over again, and I now have some gel plate printed citrus slices!
Easter Eggs:
I just happened to come across a package of four wooden Easter Eggs in Wal-Mart, and decided they would be fun to use with the gel plate! If you saw my December 2021 Mixed Media Kit Project “Sleigh Bells,” then you already know I like to use more than paper on my gel plates! So I did it again, this time with some Easter Eggs.
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The egg on the left is just multiple layers from gel printing, tipped off with some splatters from the Dina Wakley Gloss Sprays found in this month’s kit. The Egg on the right also has multiple layers, but I also used the Citrus Cut File on the gel plate and then came in and added some gel pen after it was all dry to really make the slices stand out!
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For the “Spring” Egg, I used a flower filled egg stencil I’ve had for years (no idea where it came from) and my Dina Wakley Spray to give some fun flowers to my gel printed background, then just grabbed a gel pen to add “Spring.” For the egg on the right, after my background layers were dry, I grabbed a white oil pastel to draw on some flowers! Oil pastels make a great resist, so I just added my Dina Wakley Gloss Sprays to color the stems and petals.
Envelopes:
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Once your gel prints are dry, you can fold them up and create custom envelopes with your original papers! Well I used a sheet of regular printer paper for my examples, if I had started with envelopes in mind, I would have used some cardstock for my envelope prints, but I don’t always know where I’m headed when I do most projects, and this week was no exception!
I added a bit of the Citrus Cut File and I made some paper Easter Eggs to layer up. Fun to make, and I have some one-of-a-kind envelopes. I also want to add that after they are dry, the Glossy Sprays make great resists!
Backgrounds for my tag and ATC: |
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For the tag, I started tearing up some of my papers and layered them up and added some Citrus slices using some Liquitex Matte Medium. After the matte medium was dry, I went back with my gel pens to add some accents to the rinds and scribbled on some flowers. I then came back with my glossy sprays and filled in the citrus slices. I can’t say this tag is “done", but I wanted to do a little something that showed a few examples for layering and color. For my ATC, I grabbed up my Prima ATC blanks, some bits of the paper I had made, and glued it in place before taking it over to my sewing machine and adding some random “scribble” stitches. Then I came back and popped on a few chipboard pieces from my stash to complete the card.
Thank you for joining us here at Tres Jolie! I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the different ways a gel plate can be used for making your own custom prints—half the fun is in the experimentation!
Stay Crafty, Friends
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In addition to this month’s Mixed Media Kit (*from previous Tres Jolie Kits), I used:
Corner Scraps Studio: “Citrus” Cut File; *Jacquard Lumiere “Halo Violet Gold;” Dina Wakley Media: Heavy Body Acrylic Paint “Lemon,” *Acrylic Paint: “Tangerine” & “Lemon;” Vicki Boutin “Juicy Pear” Acrylic Paint; *FolkArt “Silver Sterling” Metallic Acrylic Paint; *DecoArt “Lavender” Acrylic Paint;” Apple Barrel “White” & “Pavement” Matte Acrylic Paint; *Tim Holtz Stencil: THMS117; Acrylic Paint Pens; Gel Press 8x10 & Petites; Ranger Heat-It Tool; We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board; oil pastels; black Stabilo pencil; Sakura Pens (metallic, Moonlight, Soufflé, Glaze); Aen Art Pen (glitter); craft sticks (i.e. popsicle sticks, tongue depressors); cheese cloth; corrugated cardboard; vinyl sink mat; fabric flowers; wooden eggs; *Ranger Craft Tags; *Prima ATC Cards; Simple Stories “Good Vibes” Chipboard Stickers; Bella Blvd Ciao Chip “Adventure;” printer paper; craft foam sheets; string/yarn; hot glue gun & hot glue sticks; UHU Stic; Liquitex Matte Medium