Hello everyone. It’s been a very grey and miserable day here in North East London, so the best plan this afternoon was to stay indoors and craft! When I was over at Clarity Towers on Friday for my shows, I got my hands on a early set of stamps and mini BOW-WOB papers that Barbara will be launching on Clarity Social TV tomorrow afternoon (Monday) – meet the new Bijou Leafy Backdrops

I decided to put both the papers and stamp into action for this first play and started by brayering ‘chipped sapphire’, ‘blueprint sketch’ and ‘salty ocean’ Distress Oxides horizontally onto my 6×6 gel press. I found the piece of the BOW-WOB paper that matched the image on the stamp, then laid it face down on the gel press and rubbed it very lightly. When I lifted the paper off, not only was it coloured, but I had the design left on my gel press plate (the black ink on the paper acts as a resist to the ink on the gel press). I then pulled a print from the gel press onto a 7×7 piece of stencil card. Two backgrounds from one process!

I cut the background print down to 4.5″, ran a black Sharpie around the edges and attached it to a 5×5 card blank.

I then inked up the bijou leafy stamp with the ‘chipped sapphire’ Distress Oxide and added it into the centre of the card, together with one of the Bijou Retro Sentiments.

This is about as close to mixed media as I get, but I do enjoy pulling prints from my gel press plate. Don’t miss Barb at 2pm tomorrow (or watch her later on catch up) as she puts these stamps and papers into action. Before then, I’m heading to share this little creation with Inkspirational for their ‘shades of blue’ theme.