My First Gelli Plate Experiments

With the next few days to myself I decided to plunge into everything....lol I love having the time to be crafty, creative, hanging out at the Silhouette Plus forum and emailing. This has been such a wonderful and therapeutic time. I've missed all of you so much.

Myoriah from Crafting The Frugal Way got me on a roll with this.Thanks Myoriah! She does so many awesome experiments and so kindly shares ideas and crafty money saving tips. I was so excited to try making a home made Gelli plate when I took a look at her paper. I didn't get to try Myoriah's recipe since I didn't have any Vodka on hand but I would have loved to have tried it. At the time I also didn't have any Knox Unflavored Gelatin on hand so I began to Google other recipes when I came another recipe from The Frugal Crafter. I  read her recipe which asked for Glycerin and of course watched her video. She's so bubbly...I enjoyed her enthusuasitic video. I had plenty of the Glycerin on hand. She had one recipe where Alchol could be added and one with glycerin. I was concerned about the odor of the alcohol so I opted for the glycerin recipe. There is not odor and it turned out great!

Here are some notes and the exact way I made it. I posted about my endeavors on the Silhouette Plus forum so being a little busy I decided to take a short cut by copying and pasting what I had posted on the forum.

Mix together 12 ounces of Glycerin ( I had 2 - 6 ounce bottles on hand) with 7 one ounce packets of Unflavored Knox Gellatin. After I thorougly mixed the Glycerin and the Knox Gellatin I slowing stirred in 1 1/2 cups of boiling water and mixed everything together until I no longer felt the granules of the Know Gellatin. I poured it into an 8 x 8 glass baking dish. Now to see if it works.  

I bought the Glycerin at the drug store earlier in the year. I use it to make home made super bubbles for the grandkids so I had plenty on hand. The Unflavored Kox Gellatin was easy to find.It was in the bakery section of the grocery store on the bottom shelf with the regular gelatin. Our grocery store is a bit pricey on it a 32 ounce box is $16.99 but I bought 2 of the 4 ounce boxes at $2.95 a box and used 7 out of the 8 packets in the two boxes. The 4 ounce box was $2.69. The glycerin comes in 4 and 6 ounce bottles. The 4 ounce bottles are $1.99 and the 6 ounce bottle were $2.49.

Below are lots of pictures of the home made Gelli Plate, papers, and a couple of sample projects. I could hardly wait to see how the Silhouette would cut this paper. For the butterflies I used one of my least favorite papers. The paper was made with what was left behing on the Gelli plate. I'm still very new to this and have lots more experiementing to do. Myoriah waters her paints out a bit and used makeup sponges to sponge it on. Since I don't own a brayer ( I know, what kind of crafter doesn't own a brayer....lol) I wrapped my rolling pin in waxed paper and rolled away. It left some lines and crinkles I didn't care for so I ordered a brayer. I'm officially a crafter...hee,hee.

 My thoughts are wondering. I almost forgot to explain how I made these papers with the acrylic paint. I used regular craft store acrylic paint to make the papers. Nothing fancy about me. I squirted out blobs of paint onto the home made Gelli Plate then used my fatihful rolling pin to bring it all together. I have some old Stampin' Up rollers with designs in them so I rolled them across the paont on the Gelli plate. You can use all sorts of thing around the house to create some beautiful designs. I saw so many beutiful papers made with the gelli plate.

You can find lots of videos and tutorials on the internet. I like having Myoriah as my resource. She never hesitates to try something new. I did enjoy seeing all of the gorgeous papers I saw while I was Googling my way through Gelli plate information.

My 8 x8 Gelli Plate

My First Paper Design

Second Design

Paper Made with What was left on the Gelli Plate

I made the butterflies with this paper

I didn't get this smoothed out too well. The next time, I'm going to

try thinning out the acrylic paint with some water as Moriah suggested.

Butterfly Close Ups made with least favorite Gelli plate made paper.

A sample card made with the Gelli Plate paper butterflies.

A box cut out and made from the Gelli plate made paper.

Top of the box

I still had left over paper so I punched out some pieces to keep on hand.