What can you do with your gel prints? One things is handmade cards!  I love sending them but whenever I need one to send, I don’t seem to have the time to make it.  So I created the Alpha Jumble stencil as a shortcut so that even on busy days, I can get something from the heart into the mail.

Watch Using gel prints with a stencil to make quick cards on YouTube.

New to printing or want to more techniques?  I’ve got a whole page of gel printing resources for you!

I grabbed a few of my gel prints from my stash.  This technique works with any type of print from bold and busy to soft and subtle.

Using the fancy (from any drug store) cosmetic sponge, stencil with paint onto the gel prints.  I tend to use either black or white paint for this stenciling.

When they’re dry, cut them out.

The sentiments on the stencil fit in the center, so by adding those to the papers, I have a complete card almost ready!

I left some blank because I will write inside of them and add them to art journal pages, some will become ATCs, and some are still blank so they are ready for me to quickly add a word that I need to create just the card I need in the moment.  That makes it even quicker for the next card!

To put the cards together, I felt like doing a bit of sewing. I just as easily could have glued them, but the muse said stitching today.  I quickly added a piece of scrap painted book text behind the Happy Birthday day card, but the other two were just the stenciled gel print.

Notice the recurring quick theme here?  Life gets busy but carving a few minutes of creative time really makes my day so much better, just ask my family how cranky I get if I don’t get that time!

Rainbows are happy and colorful but they symbolize so much more that just that!  They are the hard won reward for making it through a difficult storm. Arting with my Painted Rainbows stencils is one way that I celebrate the journey of making it through those tough times.

In the video, you’ll see 2 techniques – how I create the rainbow and how I use the paint drips to create a quick dripped edge on my art journal.

Watch Rainbow Stencil Tutorial on YouTube.  You can find this stencil, and all my others at StencilGirl Products.

To build the rainbow, I start by stenciling only some of the colors through the Painted Rainbows stencil with no precision.

Why is there tape on the stencil?  Because I felt like a straight line at the bottom instead of the drips today.  Masking with just a piece of washi tape, I have the option to make it fit my mood and as a bonus it will hold the stencil in place. Since washi tape is low tack, it will be easy to remove without ripping any paper.

After I’ve removed the stencil, then I add in the other colors.  Using a cosmetic sponge imprecisely, I let the colors overlap and mingle.  A piece of paper is acting as the mask for me as I do this so that my bottom edge stays crisp and straight.  Next, it’s on to using the drips!

Now for the drips!  I love the look of dripping paint but don’t have the patience to wait for dripping paint to dry.  Using a stencil to create them means the dry time is much much shorter.

In the video, you’ll see how I move the stencil up and down to create drips of different lengths and why I flip the stencil over and use both sides for the drips.

After doing a few of the drips, the analytical portion of my play began.  I make it sound like there was deep thought involved but not really. I just looked at the drips and decided where I wanted a longer one or a shorter one and then found that size on the stencil.  But that is more thinking that I usually do when playing.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you’re new to stencils, you can see more of my blog posts and videos using them here and you can see all of my designs at StencilGirl Products.