gelli Archives - Studio Katie

Get Messy – The Season of Gifts Week 5

It’s the season of gifts over at Get Messy, So for the next few weeks I’ll be working in my Gifts journal.

Get Messy Art Journal is an art journaling program that is a school, art playground and family. We are a group of like minded art journalers who have come together under this art form to learn, share, practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. Our community values consistent creating, encouragement and suppport and trying new things. We would love to have you join us as a member of Get Messy Art Journal.

You can read more about why I love the Get Messy community here.

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The first week is 2017 is nearly over with, and it’s been a great week here in my studio! I’ve caught up on some work projects and had time to play in my art journal!

First up, this stellar page. The girl is a scanned copy from a drawing in my sketchbook. I painted a watercolor background onto the left side/flap of this page spread.

A bit of lettering with the Tombow Fudenosuke marker.

On this next page I started with a gelli print background. I spent some time last week playing with my gelli plate, so I grabbed one of my prints to use here.

I hurt my wrist recently and have been trying not to use it as much, so I actually sketched the girl below with my left (non-dominant) hand. It was so hard, and my lines are shaky, but overall I liked her enough to include her in my journal.

This page is inspired by a couple of different Get Messy members- Nina from I’m a paper nerd shared a tutorial on the GM blog showing how to make a page with “giving hands” so I did my own take on it and when I saw my friend Sasha’s take I had to borrow the quote she used.

My last page for the week is inspired by Pantone’s color of 2017, which is Greenery. I used watercolors over gesso for the background, adhered on some of my butterfly sketches, and decided to practice a bit of bounce lettering.

How was your first week of 2017? I hope it was good, with plenty of crafting time!

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How to Make Gelli Print Mandalas

Hey guys, today I wanted to show you these gelli print mandalas I did that are SO much fun to make!

First off, what is a Mandala? Let’s see what the google says:

man·da·la noun- a geometric figure representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism.

It is a pattern in a circle, sometimes complex, sometimes abstract, but always in a circle.

I just love them as a design.

I though it might be fun to paint my own mandala patterns using the Gelli Plate by Gelli Arts. Gelli Plates are made for monoprinting, and Gelli Arts makes round gelli plates that I knew would be perfect for this!

I also took pictures along the way so you could see how I did it!

Supplies:

Round Gelli Plate – I used both the 4″ and the 6″ round gelli plates by Gelli Arts
Acrylic Paints
Small Paint Brush
Brayer
Paper

1. Start by squirting a small amount of acrylic paint onto the gelli plate.

2. Use a brayer to spread out the paint on the gelli plate.

I recommend having a scrap piece of paper off to the side to roll your brayer on afterwards, getting the extra paint off.

3. Take your paper and place it on top of your gelli plate. Rub your hand over it, pressing lightly, to make sure it picks up the paint.

Peel back your paper and let dry (which shouldn’t take long).

4. Using black and white acrylic paints and a small paint brush, paint a design onto your gelli plate.

The trick here is that you have to work fast so that you print it before it dries. So don’t make it too complicated a design, unless you’re super fast.

You can of course use other colors if you wish, I like how the black and white contrasted the color.

5. While your design is still wet, put your printed circle over top of the gelli plate, printing it a second time.

6. Peel back and let dry.

You did it! Feel free to go crazy, making dozens of mandalas.

Here’s a peek at all of the mandalas I made-

What colors/designs would your mandalas be?

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DIY Gelli Print Journal

I shared this on the Hazel and Ruby blog earlier this month and I somehow forgot to share it here.

I recently bought a Bind-It-All Machine (by Zutter) and today I wanted to share with you this art journal I made using it, Hazel and Ruby products, Shimmerz Coloringz and a Gelli Plate!

I’m participating in the art journal group “Get Messy” (read more about them here.) and the journal prompts for April and May were all based on being Brave. So I made a themed journal just for those prompts.

I love the pretty colors of the Shimmerz Coloringz sprays so I used those to color a dozen or so different papers.

I prepped all of my pretty papers with some of the fabulous Hazel and Ruby Stencil Masks. I even used the Cut your own stencil mater and cut out my favorite leafy die from Spellbinders and a cut from The Cut Shoppe.

Using my 8″x10″ Gelli Plate, I spread a bit of white paint on it and printed over my papers.

Normally when I do gelli printing, I think “The more layers the better!” but this time I tried very hard to keep the pages minimalist with the white layer over the spray misted papers.

After gelli printing all of my papers I peeled off all of the masks to see the pretty colors showing through! I also trimmed them down into 4 pieces each so that they were a good size for my journal.

The backs of the prints we pretty plain, so I used some of the Maps of the World Wrap it Up paper as well as a few of the 4″ rolls of DIY Decor Tape (Not just for Decor!) to cover up the backs of the pages.

After that I loaded up all of the pages into my Bind-it-All and finished my journal!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope I’ve inspired you to get out your gelli plate and make some prints!

Do you art journal?

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Gelli Printed Coptic Bound Journal

I’ve been gelli printing for a few years but for some reason until last month I never thought to combine my Hazel and Ruby masks with my Gelli Plate. They work together so well, I really should have done it sooner!

This week is a blog swap between Hazel and Ruby and Gelli Arts so today I’m up on the Hazel and Ruby blog sharing this hand bound coptic stitch journal I created!

If you want to know how I combined Hazel and Ruby + the Gelli Plate, hop over to the Hazel and Ruby blog.

Here are the prints I created as well as more pictures of the finished journal.

I doodled on my prints with black and white markers before creating my journal. I love doodling. 🙂

I made this journal with my friend Heather in mind! She’s such an inspiring scrapbooker and artist and I thought she might like a gelli printed journal. Fingers crossed that she loves it! 🙂

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My December Album Days 8-23

Hey everyone, Merry Christmas Eve! Are you ready for the Holiday? 🙂 Just fair warning, This is a long post.

When I get up in the mornings (after playing on facebook and drinking tea) I’ve been spending time doing the days 30 Days of lists prompt and working in my December album, adding in photos and memories from the day before.

I’ve shared a little bit about my December album here on the blog already. If you want to, read more about it here:

Here are days 8-23. We celebrated Christmas early while family was in town so I had to play catch up a little bit once they left.

Dec 8th. I used a gelli print for the background on the left. The colors of the print reminded me a bit of cacti so I thought it was perfect to go with the photo of my cactus Christmas sweater!

I didn’t really do much on the 9th, so I kept it simple and just added in a list.

Dec 10th and 11th. I stamped (the wings) and drew the angel on the left and colored her with gelato pigment sticks and decided she needed to be added to my December album.

The list prompt for the 11th was “Things I wish I could outsource” so I drew a minion. 🙂

Dec 12th and 13th. The 13th was a busy day for me, I went out on my scooter twice because I needed things (from Hobby Lobby! my fave.) and my Mom and I were making Christmas presents.

Dec 14th. Today I picked my first snow pea from my garden of the winter season. We also went to get some things we needed from the bicycle shop and while there, I tried out their “fat wheel” unicycle. It was a bit different than my skinny wheel unicycle.

Dec 15th. I’ve been illustrating some of my Aunts poems (will be blogging about them after the holidays!) and I decided the ice princess worked well for my December album, so I made a copy of her and added her in.

Dec 16th. My amazing friend Heather sent me a “12 days of Christmas” package, where I open a present a day until Christmas so I had to journal about that. She’s the sweetest!

Dec 17th and 18th. I didn’t do much on the 17th, Taylor got here on the 18th and we celebrated out Christmas early! I got so many fantastic gifts, everyone loved the handmade gifts I gave them (YAY!) and we just had a great time.

We have our spray painted tree set up on our porch, so we light it up at night.

Dec 19th. We went ice skating at our local rink and had a blast! There were only a dozen people there so the fact that it wasn’t crowded made it even better!

That evening we went and drove through the Christmas lights! The next morning we got up and made gluten free sugar cookies.

Dec 22nd. We’re pet sitting Taylor’s cat for the week while she’s traveling, so I had to include a snapshot of Teddy.

Dec 23rd. This is possibly my favorite page yet. The 30 lists prompt of the day was “I find magic in”, and that really inspired me.

Both backgrounds are gelli prints- the print on the left was just on regular paper but the print on the left was done onto contact paper, so it’s a transparency.

I stapled the gelli print transparency to the top of the left page, so that if flips up to show what’s underneath- Like magic!

So there you have it, a little peek into my life this month! Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas!

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Hazel and Ruby + Gelli Arts Gift Wrap

Today I’m up on the Hazel and Ruby blog sharing this fun, festive project. Yesterday I shared how I collaged gelli prints on Helmar’s blog and today I am showing more about the actual gelli printing itself.

I combined my gelli plate with Hazel and Ruby’s Wrap it Up papers and Stencil Masks to create these fun prints!

If you want to read more about how I used Hazel and Ruby’s masks with my gelli plate go over to the H&R blog.

Here are all of the prints I did before turning them into my gift wrap. I love gelli printing! Some of these only have 1-2 layers, but I think the more layers the better!

Have you tried gelli printing?

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PWP Tea Time Art Journal Page

I created this art journal spread using Paper Wings Productions July Nesting Components Kit, which is tea themed.

Hop on over to the PWP blog to read my post!

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4th of July Mini Album for Helmar

Today I’m on the Helmar blog sharing this mini album and a fun technique involving glitter! I actually made the base of this mini album last year, using these patriotic Gelli prints I’d made. I never got around to decorating it or adding photos though. About time, right?

Hop on over to the Helmar blog to see how I made those 3d Glitter Dots!

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Gelli Printed Art Journal

I decorated this art journal for my friend, Heather, who creates beautiful scrapbook layouts, but since she’s always up for an artsy challenge I decided to make her an “Art Journal Starter Kit” for Christmas.

I included this small art journal, some washi tape, a Spectrum Noir marker, a handcarved stamp, etc. 🙂

I started by gelli printing some fun patterns onto newspaper, then I cut them into strips and mixed them up and glued them onto the cover of the small journal. I smeared silver and pink gelatos along the edges to just distress it a bit. After that I did some doodling (my favorite technique) and added the quote + some bling. I love this quote by Danny Kaye.

These prints are on the inside covers-

I really hope Heather likes it! She’s super creative when it comes to scrapbooking and I think she’ll like a little art journaling every now and then.

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Gelli Tape Bookmarks

A couple of weeks ago Gelli Arts posted a cool tutorial on their blog showing you how to transfer prints from your gelli plate onto packing tape. I thought it sounded super neat so I got out a bunch of bright paints and my gelli plate.

The only picture I took of the print on my gelli plate was with my phone..

The hardest part for me, was waiting for the paint to dry in between layers. I just moved on to a different project or got on pinterest while I waited.

I thought about cutting them up into smaller strips and making washi tape. (I might use plain old scotch tape next time, like the gift wrap stuff so that it’s thinner.) Taylor suggested I make bookmarks out of them which I thought was brilliant.

If you want to try this with your gelli plate, go see the tutorial.