This is the Part Where You Find Out Who You Are

One of the classes I took last year had us make a cardboard "canvas" from cereal boxes. To be honest I had little faith in them so I let them 'hang out' in my craft area and suffer some injustices before I started decorating them. Turns out that they are TOUGH and I really like the irregular nature of a hand-formed oval. What do you think?

Here's the back so you can see how I did it:

I made a little series of these and will be sharing more tomorrow.

Make Your Own Mailer

I needed a bubble mailer but didn't have the right size so...

Now my normal yellow purchased ones don't look very interesting :-)

Inquisitive Green Fairy Painting

When I was making this inquisitive fairy I was thinking about how young women come to an age where they are still child-like but their gazes hold the wisdom of the ages and their questions pierce through all the noise to the very heart of things. It is an interesting, precocious, in-between step that is fascinating to observe.

Have you noticed that too

Still loving dimensional paste, all that luscious texture makes me so happy!

And I continue to work on faces. 

I look forward to the day when they are easier and I can be looser in my drawing of them.

This is one of my favorite quotes, I even have it on our budgeting money envelopes.

Available on Etsy

Valentine Curio Box featuring Gelli Prints and a Tutorial

When I saw Christy's awesome mixed-media curio box I was inspired to pull mine out and finally make something. Valentine's Day seemed like a perfect topic as love is celebrated year round so it can stay out and not look too theme-y.

This project was a great way to use some of my favorite Gelli prints that I shared in my last posts here and here.

Here's a close up of some of the cells:

The edges were a perfect way to highlight some of my favorites:

And here's the back, I just loved this print and wanted to make sure it had the chance to shine:

One of the fun things Christy did was make a foil heart. I loved her tutorial but I've always made mine a little differently so I thought I'd share my process. Basically, the difference is that I cover my foil with masking tape and then gesso it instead of trying to Mod Podge paper to the foil. To be honest, I haven't had any luck doing that - I'm all thumbs. Masking tape makes it easy :-)

Ta-Da! 

Your very own light-weight, practically-free, custom, mixed-media embellishment.

Or if you want to watch the video, here's a link: http://vine.co/v/bJUF06giIh2

(OMG! Vine is a hoot, no? Look me up there so we can hang out.)

Available on Etsy

Linked up at Tatertots and Jello

Gelli Print Mono-Printing Part 2

This is the second part of the post showing all that Gelli Plate fun I was having last week. You can see the first part of the post HERE

For this one I wrote into the paint with a  Q-tip.

For the ghost print I added white paint and printed over teal

You'll see this paper prominently in an upcoming Valentine's Day project

This is another print made with layered stencils

Don't forget to roll out your excess paint and dab off your stencils into your art journal

And here's a few of my favorite prints from this Gelli Plate session:

For these ones I used a large focal-image stencil creating both a positive and negative print:

Did you recognize the sunburst behind him?

Hope this gave you a glimpse into a few of the ways you can use your Gelli Plate. 

Warmly,

~~~Nicole