Another Favorite Background Technique: Masking + Gelliprinting

Greetings, Lost Coasters! Today I wanted to talk a bit about a cool background technique you can use with any stamped image and a little masking. Fire up your trusty gel plate and let's get going!

I made this piece using the Butterfly Face and Diamonds Borders stamps. I inked them with three colors of Stazon in purple, navy, and turquoise, stamped the images, and cut masks for them. 

Using repositionable adhesive, I tacked the masks down over the stamped images, then got to work with my gelli plate. For this piece, I used the 5" x 7" plate. (I cropped the final piece a bit so that I got a composition I liked.)

Onto the gel plate I rolled on three colors of acrylic paint (blue, purple, lavender) with a brayer. I dragged a pencil eraser (the kind that fits on the end of your pencil) through the paint to make the wavy lines, and pressed a texture plate into the wet paint to get the warped pattern most visible in the purples. (NOTE: Don't worry about being too perfect and precise with this--you want a loose cool arty effect!) Then I printed directly onto the masked images.

There was still a little paint on the plate and not enough textural interest going on in the blue area of the print for my taste, so I put a numbers mask down at the top, rolled just a bit of black paint onto the plate for a dryish, texture-y effect, and printed that on top of the still-masked Butterfly Face. I wanted to keep these numbers in the background as a quiet bit of additional interest, not steal focus from the beautimous Butterfly. 😜

Then--just remove the masks, and voila! You have a quirky, arty piece ready to go in no time at all!

If you try this technique, please be sure to let me know, because I would LOVE to see your projects. 😍 Happy stamping and gelli-printing!

UNMASKED! Building a (Black and White) Collage Doll with LCD Stamps

Greetings, Lost Coasters! Today I have a tutorial for you on how I made this zany collaged doll for our Black & White challenge over at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity. These same principles will help you build any sort of rubber-stamped collage.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the Cliff Notes version of the tutorial… For tons of photos, explanatory details, and A VERY COOL REVEAL VIDEO showing the masks being peeled off layer by layer to reveal the final collage, visit my blog! I lay it all out for you there!  😁

1. Plan out the composition. 

Gather the stamp images you'd like to use and start playing with them. You can stamp them and roughly cut them out to experiment with how to position them relative to each other. You could also use software such as Photoshop or InDesign to make a sketch. 

The stamps I used to make this piece were:

Elements from the Doll Accessories Set
Black Flourish

Bishop from Chess Set

Loopy Calligraphy

Diamonds Border & Circle Tiles Border

2) Decide on your focal point. 

In all likelihood, this will be the image you stamp first--the one that appears on top of all the other layers in the collage, in the foreground. In my composition, it was the eyeglasses image.

3) Determine the order of operations.

Now you have to figure out the order in which you are going to stamp. Determine what is "foreground" and what is "background," and proceed in a logical order. The things that go behind, in the background, get stamped last.

4) Using your sketch as a blueprint...start stamping! 

I recommend the use of a stamp positioner or stamp press tool such as the MISTI. This allows you place each stamp exactly where you want it to print, and to re-ink the stamp to get perfect coverage in case an image prints a little unevenly the first time. 

5) Cut a mask for each image as you work. 

After you stamp each image on the "real" paper, stamp off onto some scrap paper, and cut that print out to use as a mask. I used repositionable adhesive to stick down my masks precisely over each image before stamping the next layer atop it. 

6) Remove the masks; oooh and aaaah.

Again, for a much more in-depth explanation packed with tons of tips, visit me here. And if you have any questions whatsoever about this process, please ask me in the comments over there. I’d love to help you guys try this out if you’ve never done a stamp collage before!

February Is For Lovers: Or, When I Am King You Shall Be Queen

Hello stamplings! Today for your creative delectation I'm going to walk you through the piece I made for our Lovers event, "When I Am King." (You have two more days to enter your lovers-themed art --until midnight, February 25th--for your chance to win cool stuff! Click on the link in this paragraph and find out the deets if you haven't already entered!)

Do you guys know the children's rhyme "Lavender's blue, dilly dilly"? I took it as my inspiration as I was looking at our fab king and queen chess pieces from the Chess Set. You know how some men will promise you anything, right? LOL So here's our lovable braggart king making you his queen.

Here's how I did it.

Using permanent (waterproof) ink, stamp the awesome king and queen onto hot-press (for a smooth surface) watercolor paper. Stamp and cut masks for the figures, and place the masks over the stamped images.

Sprinkle blue, purple, and gray Nuance powders liberally about! At this point, your piece will look approximately like this:

Now go town and mist the powders with water to your heart's content. Watch the magic happen as they bloom and blend! I like to leave them a little dry in spots for texture, but you're the boss here.

I next used a checkerboard stencil to suggest a chess board, and spritzed some more color through the stencil. (Did you know that you can use the Nuance Powders to make your own sprays? Yep--just put a bit in a mister, add water, and you're good to go!)

Let dry, and stamp "king" and "queen" with the Old Typewriter Alphabet, and emboss with silver EP. I outlined the letters in black artist pen to help them stand out, which also has the advantage of giving the letters more of a funky, arty, handmade look. The other text was computer-generated and collaged on.

With the masks still in place, drizzle and splotch some white and silver acrylic paint to bring light to some of the dark areas and add a little dimension to the piece.

When dry, remove the masks, and paint the figures with pale washes of lavender, blue, and purple. Accent the figures with sparkly silver glitter gel pen to further catch the light. Edge the piece with lavender chalk ink.

You are done! Admire the fruits of your labor...and maybe go give the king a kiss for elevating you to royal status!

Halloween Card By Bibiana

Hello Dear Lost Coasters Fans:

HERE BIBIANA...
I am bringing to you this month a  Halloween card...getting ready for the approaching date!

The background was masked and sponged in various colors ...

 I stamped twice the crow , glued one on top of the other to give some dimension...added some silver  "Stickles" and a dot for his eye

I used the Crow,  from the "Mother Goose Birds" set which comes with 3 different birds
the flourish "Long Swirl" for the background and on the top added the book sign, which comes in a set/plate of 5 stamps called  "Altered Book Set"
 
The branch and the numbers are die cuts.
The numbers are die cut in chip board placed on one corner of the card, and the branch placed below the crow and Voilà!

Thank you for your visit 

and comments - much appreciated...

You can find me at my blog

"Stamping with Bibiana"

 Supplies:
 Lost Coast Designs Stamps: Long swirl; altered book set; mother goose birds;

We're all Mad Here

Hello! 

Tera Here with my 1st post for Lost Coast Designs!!! 

My love is Mail Art so I wanted to share that love with you!

This piece is also a perfect example for this months Challenge 10: Use some red

Stamps Used:
Perspective Floor
Four Alices

Other Supplies:
washi tape
shabby shutters distress ink
distress markers
VersaFine ink

I started by stamping Alice in the top left of the envelope, then I masked her off.
Next I stamped the perspective floor.  I used distress markers to color my alice stamp then sponged the shabby shutters green on the background. To finish by piece off I used some washi tape that I though felt like wonderland to me. :)

Thank you for visiting!!

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Happy Friday Folks! Here is a fun card idea for your weekend!

Wizard of OZ stamps: Lost coast designs, Quote: Dolly Parton

I used the Wizard of OZ stamps from Lost Coast Designs that feature the precious illustrations from the original book. I did not use many supplies for this card and I bet you can make do with what you have too to make something like it! Watch the video for tips and hints on masking, embossing and coloring!

If you want to download the free sheet of Dolly Parton Quotes I mentioned in the video you can here. Happy crafting!

Victorian Ladies Card

Hello My dear Stamper Friends:

Here Bibiana ,
Today, I would like to share with you this "Victorian"/Vintage looking Card that I made using the set called "Harpers Women" and this rubber set comes with 4 different ladies.

I decided to use 2 of the ladies and in order to make them look like there is one stamp, one lady behind the other I used the "masking" technique!
 
If you want to know more about  this technique go to my blog: "Stamping with Bibiana"

For this card, I used several "Spellbinders" labels which match very well the theme of Victorian/Vintage looking,  added some ribbon, flower and pearls

I hope you can try to use more than one stamp image in your project and use this fun technique of "Masking" that creates dimension into your projects...

Have a nice day and keep on crafting, hugs...