Wendy's House: Gelli plate

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Super Funky Tote Bag

Hello, housemates! I see it's over 7 months since I last did the blog thing. Tut. All I can say is, when your daughter asks you to help out with her wedding invites and all the other crafty stuff, well, you just can't say "No," can you? More of that in a future post...

Anyway, yesterday, I received my much anticipated haul from Carabelle Studios. Some of you may know that Yorkshire's own Kate Crane is now designing for them and her first 'batch' is now available. Did I buy the whole lot direct from Carabelle in France because I was too impatient to wait for UK stockists? Yes. Yes I did. It was rude not to, quite frankly.

Stencils (including a nice little freebie mask)

Stamps

Art Printing Plates

So much lovely but where to start? I had to have a place to pin all of my button badges (Kate Crane's) and a tote bag was the perfect place. I was so desperate to monoprint onto the canvas bag using the Art Printing Plates. I thought I had a 6" round gel plate but I only have 4" and 8".

I never need an excuse to use stencils. This Noughts and Crosses stencil is also available in a smaller size, but using the large one allowed me to do it in one go.

Magenta added when the Fuschia had been lifted.

Finger Painting in the centre. Lemon, Lime and Sky...

Squidge the Art Printing Plate on top...

And yum! A snazzy, bright mix of doodley patterns. I want to call it 'Crane Chaos' but only in a good way, you understand. It's for a tote bag and I'm going to keep it for myself so I can call it what I like.

Oh, it's looking hopeful! I should've wiped a bigger circle to allow more of the centre colours to show through...

But it just wasn't liking the canvas of the tote bag.

I finally managed to get some marks down onto the bag, but it was just a complete mess.

Taking the advice of Mick Jagger and painting it black...

So anyway, the edge is neater. I know I should probably have prepared it somehow; washed it, at least. Pff. I don't have time for things like that when I'm possessed by the muse. So, stencils, it is.

I managed to line up the Noughts and Crosses again...

Then I just had to jump in with the Fiesta round stencil and kill the gorgeous Polka Dots from the Art Printing Plate (there's no time to get precious about these things - I'm nearly finished!)

Perfectly bright and totally fab and groovy.

After I've carefully placed the button badges (available on Kate's Etsy store) my bag is ready to go. I already have black and white pens inside it ready for the final doodle thing.

I LOVE IT!

The moral of the story is, if you get that flat feeling when your project just doesn't look anything like you thought it would, just keep going. Try a different technique or different materials and media. Go right in over the top of the mess you created. Don't get frustrated. And, whatever you do, don't give up.

Love and peace,

Wendy x

PS Art From the Heart in Harrogate is one of the UK stockists, but I think a lot of the items sold out pretty quickly. They will restock, so submit an email request on the items you want.

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Monday, 25 September 2017

"Beautiful" metallic book {Paperartsy Blog}

Hello again, my friends. I'm over on the Paperartsy blog tonight, sharing a fabulous book with a metallic look. This combines many of my favourite things, such as bookbinding, monoprinting, doodling and, of course, Paperartsy and Emma Godfrey's stamps and stencils.

Luckily for me, all my pink and purple shades of Fresco acrylics are all in the same box. That made things easier.

I unearthed my mini hexagonal Gelli plate, something I hadn't used before, despite buying it several months ago! Then, alternating the first four purple colours, Blueberry, Purple Rain, Lavender and Wisteria, I used the gel plate as a stamp. I wasn't bothered about the little bits that missed. I think that adds to the effect. Anyway, they eventually get covered with stencilling. I carried on filling the Smoothy Card with the same four colours.

By placing Emma's gorgeous mask (PM008) over the already printed hexagon, I 'stamped' over it with the same hexagonal plate covered in the first four pink shades of Fresco paints, Plum, Sour Grapes, Sugar Plum and Pixie Dust.

Then, by removing the stencil from the plate, it leaves you with a negative print which you can then press onto the cardstock...

I carried on with positive and negative masking until the whole sheet was filled. Some of the hexagons looked wonderful. Others not so...

Nothing that a black and a white pen couldn't fix though...

Finally, the main part of the cover was done. What it needed now was some flowers! You can never have enough flowers.

I stamped up a good selection of Emma's flowers using sets EEG14 and EEG22 and painted them using Pansy and Moonlight for the purple flowers and Sherbet and Orchid for the pink ones.

After fussy-cutting the gorgeous blooms and then curling them over a stylus tool, I decided that I wanted a magnetic closure.

The best placing for the magnets was under a flower and inaside the front cover.

I made a bookmark from one of the offcuts and its own little pocket inside which would hide the other magnet.

Out with the Treasure Gold in Royal Amethyst. I rubbed it over the edges of the book, the flowers, the bookmark and the pocket.

Everything was looking shiny-shiny and beautiful. Now I just had to put this fabulous book together. The hardest part was tearing the cartridge paper edges. It's a bit rough on your fingers. I laminated the bookmark, then made a tassel and bound the book with silver thread.

I stamped and heat-embossed the "Beautiful" in silver, then gave it a drop-shadow as it had got a bit lost in the madness behind. Then I added the gloriously shiny flowers and, after what seemed like an age, the book was finished.

Ta-daaa!

I hope I've inspired some more bookbinding projects with you. I'd love to see whatever beauties you make. Thanks for sticking with me. I promise the next post will be shorter!

Probably.