Card 4 from First Masterboard

Card 4 has involved stamping and painting over the top.  I received a Tim Holtz Stamping Platform as a belated birthday gift a few days ago, and it made this effort possible. 

I did learn something from my first attempt, which I'll pass along.  The stamp stuck to the paper, possibly from the amount of pressure I applied combined with the multiple layers of paint on the base page (from all that masterboard activity).  This resulted in pulling the paper out of its original position and the second stamping wasn't perfect (which is the point of the platform).  For the flower's stem (a separate stamp), I applied more ink to the stamp and less pressure, which meant I had to do a couple of pressings, but that was fine.

So I'm in the zone of using up old Gelli prints.  The size of this card required a larger size of envelop than could be made with a single piece of standard size paper (A4 here), and so I had to extend the top a little bit.  The brown is a little warmer than it looks, on my screen anyway, and the little butterflies are more visible.

And here are the two together.  The brown on the envelope is the same hue as the base of the card (the lovely colour of dark chocolate).  The two will be winging their way to the bearer of the stamp-platform gift.

The flower and stem stamps are from PaperArtsy -- JOFY Stamp Set 51 (also a birthday gift 😊).  

Card Number 3 from First Masterboard

Card Number 3 from First Masterboard

A  design similar to the last one, but with different coloured card layers, a wee effort at calligraphy, and an envelope made from a different Gelli-print.

A bit of edging and detail using a gold Uniball Signo gives it a bit more zip, the photo doesn't really pick it up. 

The colours of the card and envelop are far more similar than how it appears in the photos. 

Masterboard -- First Attempt 

Finally experimenting with a masterboard approach to card making.  I was particularly inspired by the Paper Artsy video tutorial on the technique (you can see it here).

So I picked out a gelli-print from several years ago, one that I liked but that felt incomplete.  I've got a tonne of these that I don't know what to do with, and so I was hoping that a masterboard approach would get me unstuck.  

Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo at this stage.  I brayered on a few more layers of paint and then stamped and stencilled flowers, lettering and butterflies on top of that:

I've included a few close-ups as well:

I then cut it up into various pieces:

I pulled out a few different colours of card to get a sense of what to do next -- a bit like trying on clothes (but so much more enjoyable).  

I sometimes stumble on the colour that feels like the perfect fit.  I can't say that happened this time, but I'm relatively satisfied with the first two cards:

The rest of the cards made from this masterboard can be found here, here, and here. 

Gelliprinting and Stencils

Mucking about with colour combinations I wouldn't normally consider

Envelopes

Utmost Happiness -- Bright and Black Gelliprinting

Simple Birthday Cards

A couple of simple birthday cards -- 

one using gelli printing 

and the other rubber stamps and markers.