Have you tried gelli plate printing yet? If not, you are missing out on hours of creative fun. Several weeks passed since I played with my homemade gelli plate and I got inspired. I picked several different types of leaves from around my yard to use as my texture tools and started printing. You don’t need a bunch of expensive equipment to participate in gelli plate printing, just make your own plate and use what you have around your house or yard. You don’t even need lots of paint colors– I made several prints last night just using black and white craft paint. In case you have been reading our earlier posts about gelli printing and wondered how long the homemade gelli plate will last, I am still using the original plate I made in January. After each session of using the plate, I rinse off any paint stuck to the plate, break up the gelli, and heat it in the microwave for two and a half minutes in the same glass pan that I let it set up in. At first I was putting the pan into the fridge to let the plate set up and then storing it in the fridge until using it again. But lately I have been leaving it on the counter overnight to set up and storing it in my craft room. It still works and looks great. One of these days I plan to make a recipe that will fit in a larger glass pan for bigger prints.

I’ll share with you some of the prints that turned out well. Don’t throw away the prints you don’t like because sometimes one more layer of paint could completely transform your print into something you do like– even at a later date. Or you can use smaller portions of the prints that don’t turn out as well for collage making, scrapbooking, cardmaking and so on. Here are prints made using only black and white paint with the “nature” tools picked from my yard:I decided I’d had enough black and white and made a few color prints. This last print is the only one where I used a texture tool other than the leaves and stems. You can see the netting texture (which was from a bag of oranges) at the lower part of the picture. Also take note that I printed the colors on top of a black and white print that wasn’t working well for me. It adds nice undertones to the print. Gelli printing is all play and experimenting. Trust me, you won’t be able to do the same thing twice. Each print turns out different even if you try to duplicate and that is where the creative fun comes in.

Are you ready to try gelli printing yet? Make a plate and start reading through our First Day of Gelli Printing posts. Have fun!