Double Trouble by Amanda Southern

Hi Everyone

This week I'm still playing with gel prints and paints along with my first inking of one of Kate Crane's recently released stamp sets 'Double Trouble' and I have put them all together to a create a wall hanging using That's Crafty! MDF squares.

Here's What I Did:

I started by selecting a previously gel printed piece of card from my stash, I then printed over the top of it using one of Carabelle's Art Print stamps using the Gel Press as a base to pick the paint up from to cover the printing stamp with white paint before then laying over the background print. The fact I used white adds some very subtle details. I then roughly measured a piece of it to match the 6" x 6" MDF panel that I was going to glue it onto. Roughly cutting that out I went around the edge of the card with my sewing machine a couple of times using black cotton. I then glued it to the panel and left it upside down for the glue to dry before I trimmed the excess card off with a sharp knife. 

The Art Print stamp I had used are specifically for use with your Gel Press but sometimes I like to use then as a normal rubber stamp by inking them up. I did this again with the same Art Print stamp and a Versafine Clair black ink pad, as these stamps have no foam on the back I laid the stamp onto my glass mat and placed the card on top of it smoothing over it with my hands making sure that the card didn't move. I didn't get a perfect print but I decided I could cut it into squares and as I was going to go over it with paint it didn't really matter that the image wasn't perfect.

I cut squares of the stamped background, I used a square punch, and along with some squares of what was left of the previous background that I had also added some machine stitching to I glued them around the outside of an 8" x 8" MDF square, the bigger MDF panel to act as a frame for my smaller piece.  Once my squares were in place I went over them with the same colour paints as I had used for the original gel print. To add a contrast to the green and blue's I lightly added a touch of brayered red paint. I roughly went around the edges with black paint, which as you will see later on I went back and added some touches of white paint which was actually gesso.

Next I added some texture stamping, again using Kate Crane Carabelle Studio stamps, and I have recently discovered the joys of using Stazon pigment inks for stamping over already painting surfaces, they are much juicer than the original Stazon and don't dry quite as quickly allowing you to get some detail stamping over acrylic painted surfaces, I stamped on the background using Snowflake White, Peacock Feathers & Passion Red. Versafine Clair works well on paint but takes a lot longer to dry than the Stazon pigment ink (needless to say I have ordered more colours!) I had to add some stamped numbers in red, I just seem to be compelled to add them somewhere on my work at the moment and this touch of numerals come from an AALL & Create set.

I stamped the Double Trouble guys onto stamping card using black Archival ink and coloured them in using coloured pencils before cutting them out and edging them using a black pen (I don't like having a white edge).

The sentiment is from Katzelkraft which I stamped twice with Versamark onto black card and then embossed with white embossing powder and heat set with a heat gun. The reason I did it twice is so I could cut each line with a black border so alternate lines were then discarded which gave me a better spaced out sentiment as I was separating the lines out, I also needed enough space around the words to edge each line with a white gel pen. Before adding everything to the panel I flicked white gesso splashes over it all and added a little washi tape to ground my guys on with a little contrast strip top right corner. It was also at this point that I went around the edges of both panels adding touches of gesso using my finger.

The 2 panels were lined up and glued on top of each other using That's Crafty! Craft glue. Now it was ready to go on the wall.

Here's What I Used:

That's Crafty! MDF Panels 6" x 6" Pack of 3

That's Crafty! MDF Panels 8" x 8" Pack of 3

Everything you need for Gelli Printing HERE (also acrylic paint of your choice)

Carabelle Studio Art Printing Square Stamps - Stained Glass

Dina Wakley Heavy Bodied Acrylics - Lime, Peacock, Ruby & White

Decoart Fluid Acrylics - Carbon Black

Carabelle Studio A6 Stamps by Kate Crane:

Double Trouble

Round & Round

Grungy Patterns

Archival Ink Pad Jet Black

Katzelkraft Sentiment Stamp Set - Relax

AALL & Create Stamp Set A6 - #211 Count on you 

Versafine Clair Ink Pad - Noctourne

Stazon Pigment Ink Pads - Peacock Feathers, Snowflake & Passion Red

Blendable Coloured Pencils like THESE

Versamark Ink Pad

White Embossing Powder 

Heat Gun

That's Crafty! White Gesso

That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Craft Adhesive

White Gel pen

Stamping Card

Black Card

Sewing Machine

Have a fabulous week and I will see you all next Tuesday

Love

Amanda x