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Background Stamps on a Gel Press

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great week and are excited for a nice weekend.  This is Jules of Paper Gems by Jules and I’m super excited to share something I just happened to try.  This year, I’ve committed to make use of supplies that haven’t been getting much love. For this blog, I’m sharing my rediscovery of a gel press!

What is a gel press?  It’s kind of weird, but it’s a solid gel like material that is non-porous.  So you can apply ink to it and it will not absorb it.  You can use it to apply unique images on your card stock, junk journal or mix media project.  It’s pretty cool!  Here’s a list of the Unity stamps I used:

There are three different techniques I used in the video below.

  1.  Stamping on the gel press and print the reverse.
  2.  Stamping with the stamp after getting ink from the gel press.
  3.  Impressing ink onto card stock directly from gel press.

Check out the YouTube video showing you how I used those great stamps and a gel press to make these three cards and several background stamps.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I’d love to see how you use some of those supplies that have been waiting to be loved!

Until next time… Happy Crafting!

Jules

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Gel printing with a bit of sass!

 

Happy Friday Unies!

I hope you all had a great week and are ready for a quick and fun video on how to make backgrounds using a gel plate. I just discovered this gem of a technique so I am not even going to pretend I know what I am doing! But, sit back and relax. Enjoy this 5-minute video and watch how I use this Unity Stamp three times and get three different looks. I have helpful tips at the end of the post.

Here are my supplies used:

(Disclaimer: I bought these off the shelf without doing any research on brands/products/performance, but they all worked great!)

  1. Gel plate
  2. Brayer
  3. Acrylic paints (regular and metallic)  (the $1 kind!)
  4. Stencils
  5. You will stamp set
  6. Ann Butler Background Builder Strips Stamps
  7. Heavy cardstock (A2)
  8. Bubblewrap
  9. Altenew Obsidian Pigment Ink
  10. Clear Embossing powder
  11. Random things to make impressions.
  12. Tim Holtz Clipping Stickers

Things I learned:

  1. There is no wrong way, just have fun.
  2. You don’t need a lot of paint on your plate. Brayer it off on a piece of paper.
  3. Do clear heat emboss the stamped images, this will prevent smudging and image deterioration. The pigment ink will just sit on top of the acrylic paint and won’t absorb.
  4. You don’t have to clean your plate in between prints. This will build interest on each layer.
  5. Remember the color you apply last, goes on first.
  6. If you use word or number stencils, remember to flip the stencil so it appears backward on the plate. Think mirrored image.

I hope you enjoyed the video. Shoot me a message if you have questions!

Charmaine
CharCards