More Valentine Inspiration and Gelli Plate Play

   My friend Nancy Maxwell James has been hosting a Valentine inspired tutorial each day on her blog at Sugar Lump Studios and it continues thru Feb. 14th. Besides the free tutorials Gale Blair-owner  of Paper Whimsy -  is offering a free collage sheet each day too!

  I was so enamored with her "Tender Tinnies" project that I got to it immediately after reading her post and seeing her gorgeous project pieces. I knew exactly what I wanted to do knowing it would be going to a dear friend of mine as a gift /container holding one of the Valentine tags I made.

  Here's my version:

  If you'd like to make your own and learn how to make it please visit Nancy's blog. It was difficult to capture the mica flakes, glitter and subtle pearlescence of the pink paint (my friend LuAnn LOVES pink!!!) I used, but you get the idea.

  For more inspiration here's a project I did last year:

 

  The wood hanging was a premade piece I picked up for about $1. I painted over it, glued on a transparency and German borders-small flowers- from ARTchix Studio , added the bead trim and a gold heart charm.

 

  My desk needed some cleaning up but before I was thru I just had to put together a few more cards using things leftover on the table:

 

 

  Leftover bits of ribbon, printed images, painted cut out hearts, torn recycled tea bags ,stitching. The stripey looking lines on the tea bag in the second one isn't nearly as pronounced as it looks in the photo.

 

  I needed to get some envies done to get Valentine tags and cards etc. out in time so today I pulled out the gelli plate for some fun envies!

 

 

  I simply played around with paints etc. and placed my envies right on the plate, usually after printing a first print on paper. The two on the very right aren't as dark as they look- the dark color is actually some Lumiere Sunset Pink but I wasn't able to get a good pic of it.

 

  These are two of the paper prints (which definitely need some finishing yet):

 

  

 

  And here's one last mop up paper I used several times-it's a sheet of light green mulberry paper:

 

 



 

  I really love how this turned out and will definitely play more with the mulberry papers!

 

  My friend LuAnn are going to get together for another gelli plate play day soon-using new stencils we got from the Artists Cellar -can't wait!! Do check out Carolyn Dube's A Colorful Gelli Print Party

for lots of ideas and great videos;  and share your art there too! And speaking of Carolyn, she is also hosting a FREE 2 week workshop- "Use Your Words" .  Carolyn will be posting a video and PDF each Mon., Wed., and Fri. beginning Feb 11th. All you need to do is sign up!

 

  Linking up to Art Journal Everyday, Creative Every Day, Paint Party Friday, A Colorful Gelli Print Party,  and Artists in Blogland's Show and Tell Saturday. Oh, I'm also linking to Inspiration Avenue for a valentine theme this week!

 

    " The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. " Anna Quindlen