Happy 4th of July !

Happy 4th of July to all my American Blog buddies! I hope you all have a safe and happy day. I'm posting some pics of the Gelli prints I made on Tuesday afternoon. If you like getting down and dirty with paint then I suggest you get hold of of a Gelli Printing Plate, they are great fun. I made these prints by masking off areas of the plate with torn paper. The stripes and stars have been created by removing the paint by drawing onto the surface with rubber ended blending tools. the prints started off looking like this...........

In desperate need of some stamping and inking I thought ! After a bit of vintaging over the surface with Antique Linen Distress Ink, Gathered Twigs and Vintage Photo on the edges and scuffing with a distress tool, they became much more to my liking.

 I also tried out a technique I read about on the Gelli Arts Blog. This is where you lay down your design on the plate with acrylic paint leaving some ares of the plate clear. You leave the paint to dry ...thoroughly... or it won't work. You then 'pull' the print from the plate using the sticky side of sticky back plastic or clear packaging tape. Next up, you go over the sticky side where the paint is, with mica powders or gilding flakes or gilding foil sheets. This sticks to the clear areas where there is no paint. Very effective, you can see this and lots more ideas over on the Gelli Arts Blog Here's my first attempt.....

What's the stitching about? Well, a normal Gelli print comes out as a reverse image, a contact print is a WYSIWYG, I found this out when my flag came out in reverse, so not to be deterred, I didn't want to waste my gilding after all, I cut it up reassembled it and stitched back together! I was lucky enough to buy my Gelli Printing Plate with a gift token after I won one of the eclectic Paperie Get Altered Challenges. Kim stocks them in the eclectic Paperie shop, as well as a great selection of Golden Acrylic Paints. So if you're the type of crafter that likes getting their hands painty, you will love Gelli Printing. Clear your table, get a supply of paper and paints a few simple mark making tools and you'll be in heaven ! x

Gelli Arts - Gelli Plate 6x6"	Speedball 4" Pop-In Rubber Brayer	Golden - 1 oz Fluid Acrylic - Naphthol Red Medium	Golden - 1 oz Fluid Acrylic - Cobalt Blue	Distress Ink Pad - Vintage Photo
Distress Ink Pad - Gathered Twigs	Distress Ink Pad - Antique Linen	Inkssentials Foam Blending Tool