Birthday Ferns – Monoprinting Technique

“Must-Try Monoprinting” was one of the lessons offered in the Spring Card Camp 2 online cardmaking class.  What is cool about this technique is that the “same ink” applied to a gel plate can be used to make two (or more) card panels.

I tried the techniques Dawn showed in her lesson and added a few variations of my own.  And while the class included more detailed instructions along with suggestions for alternate tools and supplies that could be used for this technique, here is a very brief summary of what I did to create my cards:

First, I applied ink to my gel plate (I used Broken China, Faded Jeans, and Peeled Paint Distress Oxide inks) and blended the colors with a brayer.   I then rolled the brayer onto a piece of card stock to clean it; no sense wasting all that ink!  I ended up with an inked panel that I was able to use for this card:

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Next, I “removed” ink from the gel plate with a stamp (kissing technique) and stamped the image onto a second piece of card stock. I used the “Three Ferns” (S5154) stamp from Hero Arts and repeated the kissing and stamping several times to create the panel for this next card.

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Now for the monoprinting – I placed a third piece of card stock on the gel plate to transfer the ink that was left from the previous step.  (The “Hello Topper” die is by Birch Press Designs.)

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My stamp still has some ink on it so I spritzed it with water and stamped on a fourth piece of card stock.  To clean the gel plate, I spritzed water over it and “smooshed” a fifth panel onto the wet ink before wiping it clean/dry.  I used both panels on this next card:

FIVE panels/FOUR cards from a single inking!

I tried this technique several times (it’s very addicting), and in some cases, there was enough ink on the stamp and/or gel plate to get even more panels!  (The card shown at the top of this post was made from one of these later tries and was trimmed to create a 4 1/4 inch square card.)

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If It Were Your Birthday – Birthday Challenge #1

[inside: We’d all wish you a stoo-pendous day!  (And it is, so we do!)]

Welcome to the new “Babitz Children Challenge Blog”…  Just kidding!  For my birthday this year, my children gave me the gift of inspiration; they came up with 12 different card challenges for me to complete.  Each of the themes is based on some childhood memory or other significant connection we shared.  And they included “funds” to purchase supplies I may need to complete the tasks.  How fun and creative is that?!

The first challenge was from Eric, and his theme was “If I Ran the Circus” by Dr. Seuss.  It was one of his favorite books when he was little, and he loved “torturing” me by asking me to read it to him all the time!  I say “torture” because I got terribly “tongue tied” every time I read it, and this amused Eric to no end!!

I based my card design on the book cover (front and back) and characters from the book.

The character images I used were from the “If I Ran the Circus” 2-sided decorating kit by Eureka.  The pieces were too large for my 5 x 7 inch card (they are meant to decorate bulletin boards and such) so I scanned them and then created “print and cut” files for my Silhouette so I could size them to fit.  The elements on the card front are all cut and glued.  I was originally going to also print and cut out all the images for the inside of the card, but I ended up just arranging all them on my computer and printing the panels on photo paper.

Here is the inside of the card:

The letters were created and cut with my Silhouette, and the inside greeting was computer generated, both using the Lucky Goldfish Font (demo version).

11 more challenges to go!

Once the card was finished, I read the book aloud to my 24 year old.  It hasn’t gotten any easier to read after all this time – lol!!!  A fun walk down memory lane….

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Happy Henna

This card features the “Henna” embossing folder by Darice, a pretty folder I have had for a long time but hadn’t used before.  I love the detail of the design and am really glad I “discovered” it in my drawer today – lol!

I embossed a piece of white card stock, and then I lightly sponged Tim Holtz Seedless Preserves Distress Ink over the entire surface with a blending tool.  I cut the purple “happy” from the center of the inked, embossed panel using the “In a Word: Happy Cutaway” die by Winnie & Walter (no longer in business).  The hole was eventually covered with the greeting panel.

I cut a second “happy” from black and offset the two die cuts for a shadow effect.  I created a mask to stamp just the “birthday” part of a “happy birthday” stamp and paired that with my layered die cuts on a white panel.

Thin, black mats and a white card base, and this card was done…

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Blue and White Birthday Wishes

I really like this “Floral Stem Collage” die by Poppystamps, but it was not at all what I was expecting when I ordered it!  I thought it cut a rectangular “framed” flower.  However, this die only cuts a negative image or “window” from wherever it is placed on a panel. On the sample above, I started with a 5 x 3 3/4 inch white panel and placed the die closer to the left side which left more white space for my greeting.  The blue mat panel can be seen through the “window” while also forming the border around the white.

I needed a rectangular die cut for a class I was teaching (we were working on creating mats/layers for card elements) and had purchased this die without realizing how it actually cut.  To fix this, I had to center the die on pre-cut 2 3/4″ x 4 1/4″ panels to create the “free-standing” rectangles.  A few more prep steps, but they worked out fine for the class….

The students were encouraged to add as many layers as desired.  These were some basic matting samples I used for the lesson:

The students were encouraged to change up their layouts and/or to add greetings and additional embellishments if they were feeling adventurous!  (The only “requirement” was that they matted the floral die in some way and created an A2 size card.)

Not cutting the outer border makes this die very flexible!  You just need to pay attention to the size of the panel from which you are cutting and the careful placement of the die on that panel.

Thanks for checking out my card projects!