MarteLAB: Aall & Create Stencil Fun Art Journal

Hi, servus, ciao à tutti! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Claudia here today to share with you another project done with Aall & Create stencils and stamps (and my beloved DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints of course).

(for larger views click on the images)

I know - the bright colourful look is not too typical for me, but as I used the Aall & Create stencils #9 and #28 on my Gelli Plate the painterly look is no longer a surprise.

This little art journal was done using Eileen Hull's "Passport" die and as that is a BigZ die it also cut through my one and a half millimetres greyboard! Yay!

I prepped my die cut covers with a thorough layer of white Gesso on all sides and while these dried I took out my Gelli Plate, some DecoArt media fluid acrylics and cut to size deli paper (but you can as well use tissue paper as that behaves quite the same).

The picture above shows how I apply the paint - in little drops directly from the bottle - before I use a brayer to spread and mix the paints on the plate. Then I place a stencil onto the plate, put a sheet of deli paper on top and rub that with my flat hand until the paint has transferred from the plate onto the paper. I also take prints from the wet paint on the stencil itself - this way no paint gets wasted.

The picture below shows one of these prints taken directly from the stencil. All I needed to do is spritz the stencil with the left over paint on it with a bit of water before I pulled that print.

I thoroughly enjoyed my gel plate printing session and only stopped once I had a nice little collection of about ten to fifteen prints with various designs.

Next I went in with black archival stamping ink and Aall & Create stamp sets #26 and #60 and stamped directly onto some of the dry printed deli paper sheets.

I used the gorgeous stars from this stamp set on some of the dots in the print shown in the background.

This way I got a nice collection of stamped gel plate prints that I was going to cut into strips and little scraps and collage onto my prepared journal covers.

I especially love the dots patterns in various colour mixes! But also the stamped images on the colourful Gelli Plate backgrounds look great!

I glued the three parts of the journal cover together first, so I could collage strips and scraps from my prepared stamped gel plate prints across the whole cover and spine in one go.

The picture below shows some already cut strips from the prints. This way I could play with them - layering and moving them around on the cover to find the best spots to glue them in.

I used DecoArt "Paper" Decou-Page glue and a soft brush to collage the printed deli paper in place. This glue is quite liquid-y which helps avoiding any tearing when gluing the deli paper pieces onto the covers.

Using a piece of Cut'n Dry foam I blended the journal's edges with black archival stamping ink.

Once the outside covers had dried, I also added one of the more subtle Gelli prints from my session to the covers' insides.

Then I finished the cover up by outlining some of the circles and edges with my black Stabilo All Aquarellable pencil, smudging the drawn lines with a wet brush afterwards...

...and I also added some doodling here and there using a black Faber Castell PITT Artist Pen.

The binding is actually quite simple. To not completely cover up the beautiful spine on the outside I separately threaded three pieces of thin rough yarn in a way that they go from outside to inside on the upper holes and then change to the outside again at the adjacent lower holes. Then they go to the inside again around the very top and bottom edges of the spine and are tied into a knot in the very centres of each signature (hope that makes sense). By doing so the binding thread only is visible in the short outer sections of the spine at the top and bottom.