A is for the Pinecone fish

The Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge is asking for A. I chose a fish from my wildlife encyclopedia. Actually in Finnish (and obviously many other languages too) this is a pineapple fish... for obvious reasons :) Besides the Craft Barn challenge I'm posting for the Country View challenge (stencils).

I have been gelli-printing lately, and decided to try using my gelliplate and some stencils for the background. After several layers, the result was ok... and since all my previous alpha cards have sewed elements, I added sewing around the edges (though this time there was actually nothing to sew onto the card. 

Here is the other side of the card with a description of the fish. I checked youtube and found this nice video that shows how spiky the little fellow is. Must be a lovely find for a diver, quite a stunning fish. This fish is nocturnal, hiding most of it's day and moving more actively by night. It leads a symbiotic life with some bioluminescent bacteria that live in pouches under it's lower jaw... perhaps the light helps to lure food. The first finn on the back is mutated to separate strong spikes that turn to left and right instead of rising upward. The letter A and the button background are From Rubber Dance Stamps.

The previous cards for this challenge can be found under the following links... still quite a long way to go! And the letters have been picked according to the finnish names of the animals:)

a (pinecone fish)

b (bananaquit)
c
d (dugong)
e
f (falanouc)
g (gundi)
h
i
j (jamaican tody)
k
l (flying dragon)
m
n
o
p
q (quelea)
r (rathbuni's salamander)
s (surucucu)
t
u
v
w
x
y

z

Voimakkaita värejä

Jehkotar Craft challenge antoi tällä kertaa erääksi teemaksi voimakkaat värit, ja sillä nyt mennään. Petroolinsininen on yksi lempiväreistäni, ja uusissa Polychromoskynissäni on aika hauskoja sävyjä. Olen leikkiny Gelli-plate levyllä, ja vedoksissa esiintyy samoja sinisen sävyjä.

Tein kirjakortin, ja sen seurauksena minulla on läjä kirjapaperia odottamassa eri käyttötarkoituksia. Näihin sain muutaman kulutettua... Leimailin Paperartsyn kukkasia ja väritin Polychromos puuväreillä. Niissä on mukavan voimakkaat pigmentit ja hyvä peittävyys :) vasemmalla jo aiemmin tekemäni kortti jolle ajattelin tehdä lisää seuraksi.

Tausta on tehty gelli-levyllä. Itse asiassa niin, että olin päästänyt levylle maaleja kuivumaan, ja päätin vihdoinkin putsata ne pois vedostamalla niin että tarttuivat uusien maalikerrosten mukana paperiin. Lopputulos on aika jännittävän näköinen. Valitsin ympärille eri värisiä taustoja ja tuohon yhteen lisäsin leimailua kun siinä ei värihippuja paljon ollut. Kukat on kohotettu nalle-tarralla ja tekstit on leikelty noista samoista kirjansivuista, vähän kuin olisi minirunoja.

Tässä vielä se neljäs jonka olen julkaissut jo aikaisemmin täällä. Siellä vähän enemmän tuosta taustan tekemisestä.

Imagine, Imagine!

I started playing with my Gelli-Plate, and that resulted in a pile of prints. Thanks to the Paperartsy challenge that is asking for mono-prints... I do hope to dig the plates out more often from now on :)
This card was inspired by Allison Hall, who combined Ellen Vargo stamps to her prints in the latest post. For some reason the sentiment looks really crooked in this picture... it isn't in real life! Besides Paperartsy, I'm posting for the WOW challenge (anything with embossing goes).

I used my 3x5 plate, Fresco paints in Blush, Lemon and Prawn and bubblewrap to draw a print straight on my card base. The yellow didn't really show, so I used Sunny yellow WOW embossing powder and Ellen Vargo stripes on the left side. I wanted a touch of green and stamped EEV bottle caps next. I didn't enjoy the result, the first image was too strong, the second too weak... to cover up the contrast I decided to cover the centre with a sentiment.

The sentiment is from Sara Naumann, I embossed it first and then found that a Tim Holtz die was just about the right size for it. The die does some embossing on the edges, and part of the heat embossed yellow got squished, but straightened out when I gave it a bit more heat. I mounted the sentiment on low foam tape and stamped the envelope with some more EEV stamps.

More Gelli-prints

Inspired by Ellie Knolls post from the previous Paperartsy challenge I decided to try something similar, but with acrylic paints and my small 3x5 Gelli plate. I'm posting my card for the Paperartsy Mono printing-challenge.

I decided to try printing straight on a card base. My first experiment was doodling on the gelli plate... I should have used some drying retarder, the print wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind :) neither were the other layers, I haven't been printing very much, and this obviously calls for some more practise. What's promising is, that all my experiment prints on scrap paper ended up better than I expected. The card base is a bit drabby compared to them.

I added some stamping with Paperartsy stamps and grey Archival ink, a diecut flower and a TH sticker. Calling it done, but I had to retry with brighter colours... that didn't work out the way I had thought either, but crafting doesn't have to follow the original plan :)

Paskis #319

Olisi ollut sääli jättää kiireiden vuoksi tämänkertainen Paskis väliin... aiheena on bingo ja korttikin kasautui lopulta nopeasti! Valitsin rivikseni CAS-oranssi-4 (kortissa käytetty neljää eri elementtiä). Pilkkukuvio jatkuu myös kortin taakse ja kirjekuoreen.

Katzelkraftin kissa tuli ensimmäistä kertaa käyttöön, se on väritetty Polychromos puuväreillä joita on laveerattu tärpätillä. Taustaan on käytetty sapluunaa akryylivärien kanssa. Lisäksi ompelulankaa ja ystävältä saatu stanssattu teksti. Näyttää mukavasti siltä että kisu on vähän mökötuulella ja kehräys lipsahti vahingossa :)

J is for Jamaican Tody

The Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge is asking for J with a dragonfly. Since I had a scary snake last time, I was glad to find a real cutie for this one :) I am also posting for the Paperartsy challenge (monoprints) and the Country View challenge (stencils).

The bird and it's description are cut from a wildlife encyclopedia. I used a gelli print for the colourful background (and a flower stencil has been used to pull the print). The tody-birds eat insects, and you might guess what his next meal is going to be ?!? The letter and the harlequin stamps are from Rubber Dance. There wasn't much info available about these birds, but here's the wikipedia article.

Cleaning the Gelli Plate

Playing with the Paperartsy challenge (monoprints) I had to start by cleaning my gelli plate from dry paint residues. I got a few cool prints with a crackle effect. Here's one of them, it became a background for the Jofy flower.

My gelli-plate was crusted with some dry paint. I had tried the drying layers method, but just didn't get it to work... but it does look great. I decided to use Bluff (and drying retarder) to get some prints. The prints didn't have these beautiful brights, because the lower layers of paint were darker shades. The buff seemed to have a hard time deciding if it would rather stick to the old paint or to the paper. The first print (that I used for the card above) is quite empty, because most of the paint stayed on the cracles. The areas between the cracked paint did print, giving an interesting crackle effect with just white and buff.

The Jofy flower was stamped on book paper and coloured with my new Polychromos pencils. There were om beautiful blue shades that matched the colours in the print. I fussy cut the flower, mounted it on foam tape and adhered to the background. As a sentiment I used a piece of text from the same book. It says "the rain had ended and the clouds disappeared".