Gelli Print Recipe Box Journal Tutorial

Hello everyone! Today I have a Sizzix tutorial to share with you, made with the wonderful Recipe Card Box die by Eileen Hull. There will be fun gelli printing techniques and I made a mixed media cover for the box.

When you have babies who are born too early a large part of their first months of life has to do with the importance of gaining weight. I documented that through 12 x 12 layouts for Anton, but for Leo, I wanted something different and made a little mini book devoted to weight and other developmental changes. Because of his name, I wanted to include a lion and luckily I had a lion die at home by Eileen.

You can use the techniques in this tutorial for just about any project, so don't feel that you need to do a mini book or anything baby related. Let's start with the box.

The Recipe Card Box is such a fun and versatile die, and I knew I'd like it even before I had it in my hands. It is an XL die, so you need the Extended Cutting Pads. Use this sandwich: Cutting Pad, die facing up, mat board (or chipboard), second Cutting Pad.

I die cut it from cream mat board and from sticky back canvas. As you can see, I cut off the flaps where the adhesive will go from the canvas, since the box will be easier to put together without canvas on those flaps.

Adhere the canvas to the mat board and smear a thin layer of gesso over the canvas. 

Water down Distress Paints and paint the box. I wanted it to look like a sky and brown ground. Leave to dry.

I used this great Weeks & Months stencil by Hero Arts, together with Ranger's Texture Paste. A good thing with stencils is that it is easy to move the stencil around first to see what design you like the best. Leave to dry.

Add some Walnut Stain paint to the box to distress it.

I love gelli printing and using my embossing folders and dies together with gelli printing is one of my favourite techniques. You can also have a look at this tutorial for more ideas. I had just gotten the 5 x 7 gelli plate, which is a great size for smaller projects and cut a bunch of letter sized papers into two before starting. I just love the look of that clear plate.

Emboss white cardstock in various embossing folders. You can also use coloured cardstock. Make sure that you have the design you are planning to use on the smooth side of the paper, in case your paper is textured. This is a great way to use leftover or damaged cardstock. I use white paper as backdrops for most of my tutorial photos and it tends to get a little buckled and ugly after a while. I used a few sheets to cut up papers for this technique.

Place a few blobs of paint on the gelli plate. I used Dina Wakley's paints and some Distress Paints.

Roll the paint out with a brayer and press the embossed papers into the paint, varying the placement. I find that it works better to use embossed papers than the actual embossing folders, and there is much less clean up too.

Place a paper on top and carefully press it down, pull off to get the print at the top. Place another paper on the gelli plate and you get the ghost print at the bottom, which is often my favourite. 

I wanted double sided cards, with one darker and one lighter print, so all my papers were printed with one first impression print and one ghost print.

Printing is so much fun, I always do quite a few extra papers for future projects.

For the blue papers I used Sky, White and Gathered Twigs.

And those embossed papers that you used to press into the paint end up being pretty cool too. I love having these at hand for projects. You can find some of them used on this layout, for example, from an earlier printing session.

There is a coordinating die to the Recipe Card Box which die cuts a perfectly sized card for the box (4 x 3 in). But I didn't have that die, so instead I used one of the Basics Life Made Simple dies by Rachel Bright, meant for pocket scrapbooking. I die cut enough cards so that I can use this journal until Leo is about 5 years old. 

All the printed cards are different. 

Gelli printed papers are such a great base for mini books, you can find other examples here and here.

I used a lot of different Hero Arts stamps to stamp the cards, just a few of them are shown on this photo. A mix of word, pattern and image stamps were used, fitting with my theme. I love the new Overlap Circle Frame.

The words and ledger lines were stamped with black ink, while the rest of the stamping were done with tone-on-tone Archival Inks. 

The lion was die cut from gelli printed papers, using both darker and lighter papers.

I used the Homemade Alphabet die to die cut his name. Love the font of this die.

Assemble the box with a strong adhesive, I used Ranger's Wonder Tape. Layer the pieces for the lion together and glue to the box. I also added a piece of lace. The title was stamped with a word stamps and alphabet stamps.

This lion is so cute and I liked how it looked with the printed patterns.

 

The ruler stencil is by Tim Holtz.

A Velcro dot is keeping the box closed.

The back of the box was stamped with some of the stamps used on the cards.

I always like to decorate the sides of 3-D projects, and stamped them with word stamps. 

The other side of the box.

  

The cards are all different and there is the same amount of yellow and blue cards. The front of the cards are the lighter side, so that they will be easier to write on. I added a date stamp and lines on each card.

There had to be some birds of course. I used a lot of stamps from the Stamp Your Story sets.

On the back of the cards, I will add a photo for each point in time that is documented.

 

The layers of prints and stamping makes for an interesting background, without being too busy.

I like the idea of gathering a whole bunch of developmental milestones in one journal. I might bind the cards in the future, but for now, I am leaving them lose so that I can pick one that fits every time.

I love sitting down and just stamping away. 

You can easily make pages that will fit your theme perfectly, and the printing and stamping process doesn't take very long.

Use other colour combinations to fit your project. Each of these little cards, could also be a card on their own, or the background of an art journal page. In fact, you will see one of them in my art journal in the future since I made many more prints than what I needed for this project.

I like that it looks as if smoke is coming out of the chimney, which was something I didn't see until after I stamped the house.

Another close up of the layers of printing and stamping. 

This It's a Parade stamp is another favourite of mine, and I have used it quite a few times. It looks so happy. 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it inspired you to make mini books and do some gelli printing.

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Sizzix XL Die - Box, Recipe Card	Sizzix Thinlits - Lion & Monkey	Sizzix HOMEMADE ALPHABET	Sizzix BASICS Thinlits Die Set	Sizzix POLKA DOTS & STARFLOWERS
Sizzix SUNBURST AND WAFFLE	Tim Holtz Sizzix BOTTLE CAPS & RULERS	Tim Holtz Sizzix TYPEWRITER AND KEYBOARD	Tim Holtz Sizzix DOT MATRIX & GRIDLOCK	GelliArts 5 x 7 GEL PRINTING PLATE
Hero Arts OVERLAP CIRCLE FRAME	Hero Arts COLOR THE BRANCH	Hero Arts CALENDAR	Hero Arts FRIENDLY BIRDS	Hero Arts IT'S A PARADE
Hero Arts BIRD	Hero Arts TEXTURE AND SHAPE	Hero Arts MY WORDS cl695	Hero Arts TRAVEL	Hero Arts MY NOTEBOOK
Hero Arts MY FAVORITE	Hero Arts REMEMBER AC028	Hero Arts TIME AC029	Hero Arts PRINTER'S LOWERCASE Alphabet	Hero Arts COME FLY WITH ME
Hero Arts Stencil WEEKS AND MONTHS	Tim Holtz Stencil MEASURED	Neenah Classic Crest 80 LB SUPER SMOOTH SOLAR WHITE	Ranger WHITE STICKY-BACK CANVAS	Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack
Ranger MIXED MEDIA CARDSTOCK	Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival DANDELION	Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival POTTING SOIL	Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival FORGET-ME-NOT	Ranger Archival Ink Pad JET BLACK
Ranger Archival Ink FRENCH ULTRAMARINE	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE GESSO	Ranger TEXTURE PASTE	Dina Wakley Ranger LEMON Paint	Dina Wakley Ranger UMBER Acrylic Paint
Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE Paint	Dina Wakley Ranger SKY	Tim Holtz Distress Paint BROKEN CHINA	Tim Holtz Distress Paint GATHERED TWIGS	Tim Holtz Distress Paint TUMBLED GLASS
Tim Holtz Distress Paint WALNUT STAIN	Tim Holtz DISTRESS INK PAD WALNUT STAIN	Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE	Sizzix MAGNETIC PLATFORM
Ranger Inkssentials INKY ROLLER MEDIUM Ink Brayer	Ranger Inkssentials WONDER TAPE 1/8""	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS	Ranger Large 2 oz MISTER BOTTLE
Ranger Inkssentials INK BLENDING TOOL	Dina Wakley Ranger PALETTE KNIFE

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