What can you do with Stenciled-Gelli Printed Papers?

After creating some beautiful alternative gelli plate prints, using Cecilia Swatton's amazing stencil designs, (exclusive at Stencil Girl Stencils) this question always seems to arise:  What do you use these papers for?  And I always have an answer.  

There are many uses,  depending on the type of paper that I recycled.  The list is long and includes creating bound art journals, but this week I used these beautiful painted papers to create something new:  "Art Jewelry".  

Easy and lightweight!  These take only a few supplies such as: eyelets, hand punches for the shapes and rounded corners, Glossy Accents if you want the paper to look like polished stone, a cropodile tool to create holes and set eylets, plus miscellaneous jewelry parts to create earrings and pendants such as these.



































But since nothing is allowed to go to waste, even the negative cut-out shapes are put to use.  Here they were used to create some fun bookmarks to give as gifts.  Just need to pick up some tassles of tie some raffia through the eyelet and they will be finished. 

April's Designer Paper Technique

Grab yourself some old magazines and have some fun tearing out the pages for this awesome paper technique! Sort your pages by color and group them with colors that compliment eachother. Use watercolor paper or thin cardboard as a substrate and decoupage your torn papers on randomly. To texturize, apply gel medium, (not heavy body) and rake through it with a fork or other impliment. Add a colored glaze, 3-5 times and you are done. You can then dry brush on some gesso or metallic paints, whatever your heart desires. Make sure you allow plenty of drying time between each layer of a wet application.

Finished Shadowbox

I have so enjoyed this "Sewn Hearts" workshop and want to "Thank Eileen" for getting me into the studio for a few hours of fun time.

I used an artist paper for the background, red line tape to adhere the ribbons, gorilla tape to attach the vintage brooch, Sure Cuts A Lot software to cut out the "Sweet Heart" using a handwriting font, pop dots to give the heart some depth and for the final layer, I used rub-ons directly on the glass.