Still having fun at the online Gel Printers Summit 2025. Even found one of my Poetry Friday pals in there! The summit is organized each year by artist Drew Steinbrecher.
I’m “behind” already, but participants have lifetime access to the courses, which is great. Here’s my latest adventure. I strayed far off course from the project in Tania Ahmed‘s wonderful session but ended up making a little triptych on vintage library cards with leaf prints and bits of stencils.
Here were some earlier play-prints from courses with Rebecca Chapman and Kellee Conrad – again, very far afield from the actual instructions!
Happy World Card Making Day 2025 – October 4! I’ve been busy in the studio making handcrafted cards featuring authentic vintage elements, my own art, vintage rubber stamp and letterpress block impressions, and antique illustrations. I’m starting to get them listed in my Etsy shop, with many more on the way. (If you live in the SC Lowcountry, you can find some at The Beaufort Emporium as well.)
I love thinking that something I’ve created might serve as a tangible way for one human being to connect with another, perhaps bringing a smile. I’ve kept a zillion cards over the years myself!
My new cards are 5X7, made using archival cardstock with matching envelopes.
Here’s to cards of all kinds, especially handmade ones – from crumpled crayon masterpieces to professionally designed individual works of art. Maybe today’s a good day to make one of your own, and make someone else’s day?
For a history of greeting cards from ancient Chinese and Egyptian traditions to 15th-century European printed ones to Victorian Valentines and Christmas cards, visit the Greeting Card Association at https://www.greetingcard.org/history.
Today is the release day of “Downton Abbey – The Grand Finale”! For 15 years, from the Masterpiece series on PBS to subsequent movies, the characters living upstairs and downstairs in the grand house have brought us to laughter and tears. My daughter and I will definitely take in this final movie, and I might or might not wear a fascinator hat.
I celebrated by making a couple of small handmade journals featuring 1920s ephemera. I love the sassy/classy attitudes in these black-and-white fashion illustrations from the 1920s. These books feature 50 blank pages for thoughts or sketches. But I’ve also dropped in a tiny calendar page from 1929, and added little cherub children clipped from a 1922 postcard and tucked into a vintage pocket on the inside back cover. A 1920s grocery receipt graces one, and a 1920s film star visage from an ad graces the other.
I do love a lot of the 1920s aesthetics, and I just love finding anything 100 years old and wondering about its past lives. Recently I came across this tiny celluloid blank date book from 1928. These were evidently made into address books and memo books, too – just the size to pop into a steel bead-laden purse, perhaps? I was thrilled to see that it is held together by two celluloid jump rings. I’ve used metal jump rings for years to make tiny journals, but I didn’t know how far back that idea went. Too fun!
Just back from a wonderful few days in Helen, Georgia, at the August Retreat sponsored by Scrappy Shak. Libby Hickson of Pink and Main shared some foiling tips for cardmaking and more, the Scrappy Shak team led some introductory make-and-takes.
The main event and our featured fearless leader was Seth Apter, bringing his mixed media magic and more. I’ve taken several of Seth’s online classes over the years and purchased his book not long after it came out a dozen years ago or so. What a treat to meet him in person! Seth is as generous and down-to-earth as you’d imagine from his online sessions, but toss in a sharp and quick wit in a crowd of live humans sharing the same space. Thanks to Sizzix for sponsoring his participation, and huge thanks to Melanie, Diane, and the whole Scrappy Shak family for a fun and creative long weekend. (Did I mention the Roaring 20s Welcome Party, complete with diamond heist?!)
With Melanie, Scrappy Shak owner and long list sister of the purple locks….Loved making these!And these. Roaring 20s Party!Diane, Melanie’s partner in creative business and… crime?!
Handmade Greeting Cards for all occasions, each unique! I’m using vintage and antique rubber stamps and letterpress blocks, my own gel plate prints, actual ephemera, and *heart*.
On a morning walk last week – one of those crisp, bright days on the cusp of Spring – I pocketed some lovely wild vinca & made several gel plate prints with these in different configurations. The one above seemed to suggest a fairy, so I added some wee contributions with pen and ink and colored pencil. I also added a copy of a fairy sized “found poem” of sorts from a story by Jane Andrews in Our Young Folks – An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls, Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1868.
the fairies are working painting flowers and delicate things
I hope to continue working, making more images of “flowers and delicate things,” as the Fey direct.
My current gel plate printing obsession has been fueled by a wonderful online online gel plate printing mixed media course with Tara Axford through Fibre Arts Take Two, a dangerous destination for fellow studio mess and magic makers – consider yourself warned. Anyway, the courses are amazing; FATT is based in Australia primarily, but instructors and students come from every corner of the globe.
I’ve dabbled in this form a bit before, but I’ve so enjoyed this very organized, challenging, and inspiring deep dive. The portion of the course with the instructor regularly popping into a private Facebook Live group is now past, but I’m still making my way through remaining modules. FATT course materials and their gorgeously executed videos are available to access for life.
Happy International Women’s Day! Tucked into the layers of this original gel plate print art is an image transfer of a confident (and corseted!) woman, from an antique advertisement more than 100 years old. I’ve also added a copy of text from POETRY AND ART; Rich Gleanings from Mind and Heart (A.A. Smith, ed., Columbia Publishing Co., 1892.) These few lines from an anonymous poem read:
Now, in the August of our Middle Age, We hail thee, dahlia, as our fittest sign; Thy stately splendor at this later stage Befits us more than rose or trailing vine, So strong and straight, so staid in all thy ways, Meeting the sun and wind with steadfast gaze.
The botanicals whose images are imprinted into this piece are not dahlias, but rather some vinca I found on a walk on a crisp March morning.
The one-of-a-kind print on plain white paper is adhered to thicker drawing paper and has a coating of acrylic gloss on the top, except for the text and extra botanical image. The artwork is approximately 5X7 inches and is hung in a white, acid-free 8X10 mat. It will arrive in a clear protective sleeve. Ready to frame!
