New/Underused Product Part 2

Linden Leaf is hosting some different LTC swaps this year.  She posted them last year giving us plenty of time to learn, play, and work on our cards.  For the swap you are supposed to pick a new or underused product and use that in different ways to make four sets of cards.  I picked the Gelli Plate.  I had 2 Gelli Plates and I have used them a few times but I thought I was not using it to its fullest.  I liked the bigger of the 2 plates best, so I donated the smaller one to work.

The swap was posted in September with the due date in May.  I took advantage of a Saturday in November with nothing going on and made my cards for the first two swaps.  I found this technique in Pinterest and here is the YouTube video if you want to watch. 

I tried this technique and could not get it to work.  I tried text from 3 magazines (recipes, calendars, articles, etc) and when that didn't work, I rummaged in the attic and found an old college text book.  I tried it multiple times and only got a small area of text one of the times.  I don't know what the issue was but I would like to try again in the future.

Plan B- layers in one step.  This is more like what I would traditionally do with a Gelli Plate but you do it all at once.  Normally, I would put down some paint with a design and pull a print.  Then put down a different color paint with a fancy design and pull a print on top of the first, etc.   

This technique is very easy.  You basically roll some paint on the plate then you can stamp stamps/texture plates with or without paint on them.  You can transfer paint and designs from one area to another with stamps/texture plates.

One of the things I enjoyed most was making my own texture things.  I made a hot glue stamp, wadded up a plastic grocery bag, and tore an outside layer off corrugated cardboard. 

Like my last card, you let the paint dry and cover it with a very thin layer of transparent/fluid acrylic paint.  Then you pull your print.  Ta da!   This go round I pulled my prints on card stock and text paper.

When the paint was dry I cut my cards to size and stamped my stamp directly to the paper.  Like I said in my last post, I wanted a glossy finish.  So, I covered the card with glossy Mod Podge.  Once that was dry, I glued it to the black background.  Here is the YouTube video of this technique, if you want to watch a pro.

New/Underused Product: Gelli Prints-
One print, many layers

My Gelli Plate is 8x10 and one of the things I love is the white/blank edge left from the paper being larger than the plate.  I try really hard to cut the prints in a way to use as much of that edge as possible.  I don't know why I like it so much.  You think my OCD would be the opposite.  

Anyway, I'm really happy with this set of cards.  I just got my cards back from the first of these swaps (today is 3/14).  I really enjoyed all the cards and reading/learning about different techniques.  I'm really glad I joined these swaps <3

Here is the first New/Underused card I made:

https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/02/newunderused-product-part-1.html

Quilt Block Twinchies

These are my cards for Beetles "Quilt Block Twinches" LTC swap.  Twinchies are 2x2 inches.  For this swap you were supposed to send 2 sets of quilt blocks.  The red one is Flying Geese and the purple one is Log Cabin.

My original idea was to use a gelli print background and then emboss the stamp.  But I didn't have the color embossing powders that I wanted.  When I went to order embossing powders online I found these Ranger Mixed Media Powders. 

Quilt Block Twinches: Flying Geese & Log Cabin

The powders arrived and I thought they didn't go with the gelli background I made.  So, I set that aside, went thru my scrapbook paper, and found these back and white ones I thought went well with the fancy powder.  Has anyone tried these powders?  They have regular colored powder AND gold, silver, black, and big chunks of clear mixed in.  I love the smooth feel of it but not sure it would match a lot of what I make. 

Walk in the Park Event

Lily pad selfie before stamping the lily pad box

We had a great time at the Inaugural Walk in the Park event.  This is supposed to be an annual event at different state parks around Indiana.  G-MA picked up me and Daddy's Favorite Princess at 7 am and we made the 2 hour drive north to Shakamak State Park.

It had been a long time since I had been here.  The first part of the morning was wet but the trails were beautiful.  There were dogwood trees blooming everywhere along with wildflowers.  We also saw a few areas with lily pads.

Beautiful Park

We checked in at the cabin, dropped off our food & table tops, and hit the road.  Since it was sprinkling, we did the series of drive by boxes first.  We still had a little bit of time before lunch and stopped and grabbed 2 boxes of one series.

We went to the cabin for lunch and stamped a few table top boxes.  G-MA doesn't like this type of boxing so we didn't stay long.

Walk in the Park Event

There was one set of boxes on a paved path and we went after those next.  They were really cute camping themed stamps.  Some of the right/lefts were wrong but we still found all the boxes.  After that we went back to the car and took off on a trail in another direction.  It had some super cute alien stamps.  We even found a stamp planted in 2007!

At this point G-MA was pretty tired so we went back to the cabin.  We stamped some more table tops, exchanged, talked, and packed up our stuff.  On the way out I planted a box for Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!).  We also stopped at a cemetery where I got a box from 2010 that G-MA already had.  We ate at Arby's on the way home and I took a nice warm shower after logging all my finds.

Silly camp store sign :) 

The event was great!  We ended up with 35 traditional boxes.  I heard that some people couldn't find one here or there but we found every box that we looked for.  We left some hitchhikers on the trail and took some new ones from a hostile.  I had a postal waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home :)

Hummingbird LTC

This is my card for dancingpecan's "Pollinators" LTC swap.  My card is called, "Hummingbird".   I have been thinking about carving a hummingbird for a long time and finally had the time to do so.  Hummingbirds are the only birds that I feed. 

This is another new technique for me.  I saw a beautiful sunflower card on Pinterest and I followed the link to the blog to see what brand of watercolors they used.  I discovered that they actually used Distress Inks and not watercolors.  I have a lot of Distress Inks so I decided to give it a try.

This technique is pretty easy.  You stamp your image on white paper and emboss it with white or clear embossing powder.  Then you basically do the reverse of what I would normally do.  Most of the time I rub the ink on my craft mat, spray with water, and rub my card thru the ink.

Pollinators: Hummingbird

Rub the ink on a transparency (that I only have because of my shaker card) one color at a time, spritz with water, rub the transparency on your card, and dry with a heat tool.  Do this over and over with different colors or you get the look you want.  When you run the heat tool over the card so many times all the embossing powder melts away but the image is still there. 

I guess you have more control with this method on where the color goes instead of blinding rubbing your card in ink.  But I prefer the old way better.  I tried my mister and mini mister for the water and there was a big difference in the color of the cards.  I probably won't use this technique again.