Topflight Stamps Birthday Blog Hop Rocking Circle Cards with Jofy PaperArtsy Stamps

 

Hi friends!  It's Topflight Stamps 6th birthday and to celebrate, I’ve teamed up with some great designers to showcase celebratory projects using the unique products available at Topflight Stamps. Please hop along with us and see all the beautiful talent from this group of amazing designers! There is a master list of Hop stops on the Topflight Stamps blog! We are also Hopping on Instagram! You can start at the Topflight Stamps account @topflightstamps.

Did we mention there will be prizes?

To celebrate, I decided to share a quick tutorial with you on using gel prints to make rocking cards - how fun!  First, let me show you how I made a couple of bright and cheery prints for my backgrounds.  I used my 8x10" Gel Press printing plate, but for this project you could use a 6x6" or 5x7" plate, as you only need two 5.5" circles to make four cards.  

I started with a color palette of PaperArtsy Slimed, Bubble Gum, Cherry Blossom, Sargasso, Aquamarine and Cloud 9 Fresco Chalk Acrylics.  You can see I added a tiny blob of each color along my plate.

Next, I used my small 2" Speedball Brayer to blend the colors all around.  I was careful not to mix the colors, but to blend them in small sections and brayer off onto a scrap paper before switching colors.  

Because I used a lot of colors, even with the smallest blobs of paint, I still had a very wet gel plate.  I wanted to leave a lot of the color on the plate, so I pulled my print by only tapping lightly on the paper.  You can see the result below.  

This left a lot of good paint for me to continue to work with.  Those built up layers are what you want when making gel prints, so never clean your plate!  ;0  Now, I added PaperArtsy stencil 309 by Jofy (PS309) to my plate and added a few dabs of paint to brayer OVER the stencil.  I tried to add the colors in contrast over the base colors.  

I lifted the stencil then pulled some of the dark pink dots onto my first print by lightly bending my paper and pressing lightly into the paint.  

There was still plenty of paint left for a second print.  The second prints are usually the best because you've built up your layers.  This is the one I used for my cards.  

Next, I took the largest cutting dies from the Crealies XXL Nesting Circle Dies and cut four circles from heavy white cardstock.  Then I took the next size and cut two circles from my gel prints.  I folded all of the circles in half and creased with my bone folder.  I cut the printed circles in half.  

Next I worked on my focal images, the beautiful rainbow stamps by Jofy for PaperArtsy, JOFY110.  I stamped them all out onto Bristol using Versafine ink and heat set them.  I stamped an additional image onto a post-it note to create a mask, then used my Studio Light Ink Blending Brushes to sponge the circles from the coordinating stencil by Jofy for PaperArtsy (PS308) around the stamped rainbow.  My Wendy Vecchi Stay-tion worked great for this!  I chose coordinating Distress Inks, choosing Tumbled Glass, Twisted Citron and Picked Raspberry for the sponging.  

I got really excited at this point, seeing all of those loopy borders after removing the mask.  

I used my Prism Brush Markers to color the rainbows and adhered my pieces, layering with stamped clouds from the Studio Light Art by Marlene Sunny Days stamp set, which I tinted to match.  

I stamped the happy birthday sentiments using the Visible Image Go To Words set.  I really enjoyed mixing up the color scheme based on the portion of the gel print I used for each background.  As a bonus, the cards rock when you touch them!  Make sure to visit my IG @sewpaperpaint for video clip.  If you haven't tried this style of card or played with your Gel Press in a while, I do hope you've been inspired to do so today!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Of course, it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes! Topflight Stamps is giving four lucky winners $50 Gift Certificates to the store. Two winners will be chosen from commenters on the blog hop and two will be chosen from commenters on the IG hop. For a chance to win, make sure to visit the stops on the hop and leave a comment by April 1st. Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on Monday, April 3rd. Please note winners must be US Residents for shipping purposes. Good Luck!

Find these stamping products at Topflight Stamps!