The Write Stuff

Archive for January 1st, 2015

 If you’re like me, you’ve been seeing a lot of “gel plate” background techniques using ink or acrylic paint. I haven’t bought a gel plate yet, but then again, I don’t “really” need one. The gel plate backgrounds are a new version of what was called “mono printing”. I even did a tutorial for Splitcoast way back in 2009 on the technique (HERE). So for me it’s, No Gel Plate? No Problem! 

I have lots of pictures to show, so get comfy. And I’m going to show two different plates I used…one is a plain piece of glass (from an 8×10 picture) and the other is a 8×8 hot glue gun mat made out of silicone or something similar. Both work wonderfully and while I’m using pigment ink in both examples, you can also use acrylic paint. You can certainly try other mediums, but with dye based inks or watercolors, you probably won’t be able to do techniques like stamping or combing because the ink is just too thin and will run together. So let’s get started. I’ll show the two different plates and also some fun things to do w/ your brayer, stamps & stencils. The pictures are all annotated and just click to enlarge.

This is my finished card using the background above.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Our Daily Bread designs – Simple Things, Honeycomb Bg, Sentiments Collection 2

Paper:  Neenah white, dk teal

Ink: Versafine Onyx (for images), Colobox pigment inks in citrine, surf, seaglass, fresh green, evergreen, teal, celadon

Accessories:   ODBD clover die, Spellbiders mega oval & Radiant rectangles dies, Copic markers, Aegean silver embossing powder, stencil, sequin waste strip, combing tool, 8×10 picture glass, 8×8 hot glue gun mat, small brayer

Happy New Year!! Welcome to the January Release for Our Daily Bread designs!  We have some very cool sets and dies for you this month and we know you’re going to want them all! 

On my first card, I’m using the wonderful, grunge style Rock Star set. I know this set will look great on masculine and teen birthday cards and while it does have an edgy, grunge thing going, somehow it still looks a little clean when I get hold of it, lol. Guess I’m just not a grunge type, but it does show that you don’t have to distress it a bunch to have a fun look.

After stamping and adding a little color, I die cut the guitar using an out of the box technique and the largest star from the Sparkling Star dies. I used a smaller star for the greeting then added a little stickles to them. The layers behind the stars were fussy cut. The background was die cut on the right side four times w/ a curved die then strips of peach & aqua inserted underneath and few more die cut stars on top. The finished card is 5.50 x 4.25 and these are the Copics I used.

I usually forget to show you the inside, but I remembered on these. Here’s a little look at this one using some of the left over frames and pieces from the front.

On my second card, I’m using the Music Speaks, Just a Note sets along with the new Faithful Fish Pattern die.


The large treble clef was stamped, colored & fussy cut. I stamped part of the image on another piece, masked it a bit and stamped the bird & music bar. After coloring I die cut it and added the die cut & embossed fish pattern behind it. I actually die cut this twice out of the aqua and on the smaller one, I cut it across the middle and shortened it. Since the long oval covers the seam, you don’t even see it.

In between the two aqua layers, I put a piece of the Chalkboard paper collection. The finished card is 5.50 x 4.25 and these are the Copics I used.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous & Creative New Year!