Gelli Printing Newbie

Whether you make your own Gelli plate, buy one or borrow a friend's, I highly encourage it. What a fun way to paint and make one-of-a-kind monoprints.

Gelli printing on deli paper

My new 6X6 Gelli plate arrived in the mail the other day. Being a newbie at this, I wanted to start small. There are lots of great YouTube tutorials on Gelli printing, so I basically took a free workshop!

My new Gelli plate was so perfect looking!

My Gelli plate is not homemade, so it must be placed on a nonporous surface. I kept mine on the plastic backing as I worked. But after I finished, I had to peel off the backing and wash the whole plate, because I'm kind of a messy Gelli printer.

It was fun to experiment with different textures for making prints. Stencils, string, leaves, flowers, a pencil eraser for polka dots, q-tips to write letters, bubble wrap--there are many things lying around the craft room you can use. You just have to keep in mind not to use anything that would scratch your plate and cause permanent damage.
 

I made so many tags in no time at all.

I got great results on kraft paper, manila tags, white cardstock, and deli paper. It's fast and easy to make many prints that you can use for art, scrapbooking, cards, and your art journal. I was going for a lot of tag-making that I could embellish on later, and use in artwork and scrapbooking.

 Some tags pulled up more paint than others, depending on how I was using the stencil, and I liked that since some of them will have embellishments and sentiments added later.

I embossed some cardstock and used it to create some fun prints with the embossed side down, of course, and now I can also use the actual embossed sheet. After this photo I went over the raised parts with a gelato stick and I love the results!

I love both the texture and look of Gelli on deli! I get big boxes of deli paper at Sam's, so it's economical too--can't wait to apply it to scrapbooking and my art journal.
 

I found an old heavy cookie sheet to work on - perfect.

 The next day my nine-year-old nephew visited and he started Gelli printing with me. He used the tags and made bookmarks for his friends--so cute. He had no trouble catching on to the technique!

Old file folders make cute art tags

I upcycled old file folders into tags (I used a punch--I also have a tag diecut I use a lot), Gelli printed them, and now I'm embellishing them to create an art piece. I am a frugal crafter (thank you Lindsay Weirich!) and I do a lot of

upcycling and shopping my stash, so I don't jump right into buying every new thing that comes out. But I have decided that this was a great investment for all my paper play and so glad I bought one! I thought about making one, but the price of a big box of gellatin with several packets in it is quite expensive at my grocery store! It was better for me to buy a Gelli plate that will last a long time. On Amazon I didn't pay shipping or tax, so it was truly economical! (I was buying a couple of other things, so it was free shipping.) There are recipes out there to make a longer lasting Gelli plate, and the advantage to that is that you can make it square or round, and make it any size you wish. A small little stamping-size square would be great, and you could actually turn your little Gelli plate into a stamp! But for now, I'm sticking with this 6X6 size, it is perfect for what I need.


Happy printing!

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Gelli