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Welcome! I’m Carolyn Dube – This colorful journey is all about the freedom of play!

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The Fine Print

Some of the links on this blog are affiliate links and I receive a small percentage. It doesn't cost you anything extra and helps keep all the free tutorials and videos coming! It's a win-win! The website is copyright Carolyn Dube, and that is kinda common sense since this is my site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Use Your Gel Prints with Stencils

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What can you do with all those gel prints you’ve made? That’s a question I get asked a lot and in this video I’m sharing how I use them with stencils. This technique works with any prints you have, from ones you love to ones you don’t! Adding the stenciling can really shift how they look!

I am over the moon honored to be this month’s StencilClub guest designer over at StencilGirl Products! The Art House collection I designed is two 9×12 stencils and it includes the 5 house masks. You can get all the details on StencilClub here– later in this blog post I share why I chose those words to go with the art houses. Now let’s get into seeing some of the ways these stencils can be used!

This is a simple, yet very effective technique. Put your word stencil on any gel print and pounce some white paint (or any color you want) on there. I’m using a white thick paint so that I don’t have to be very careful and can still get crisp lines.

Once you’ve got the white paint on there, remove the stencil. You then have a choice. Leave it just as it is or block out the word. Using the same cosmetic sponge, pounce over the other words, leaving just your single chosen word visible. One perk of this that I love is the slight ghost look of the other words under the white paint.

Rip, tear, or cut them out and now you have a stash of words at the ready!

Why did I choose these words? After creating the houses and their masks, I wanted the second stencil to have words on it. But which words- there a whole lot of them to choose from! Who we are has a huge influence on what we create and I wanted to honor that with these words. The people who came before us. The connections we have to people right now. Family, both biological and chosen family. Those relationships have directly and indirectly influenced our creative journeys, our art houses.

Once you’ve got these words, what can you do with them? Use them on a tag. Here it’s doing double duty as the title and also as a pocket, sewn on three sides. Inside that pocket are three fabric houses stenciled and stitched.

Creating a card with one of the words is fast! I simply attached it to a card blank and poof, it’s ready to mail! Don’t want to stitch it on? No problem, just grab a glue stick!

The greatest joy of designing stencils is seeing how others use them. That’s the wonderful thing about stencils, they are a tool and we can each use it in our own style, in our own way. We are all inspirations to each other! So I am sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for July 15, 2022 when these ship because that means soon after, I’ll get to see how you are using these!

Details about what is included in StencilClub:

  • two 9×12″ exclusive club only stencils that ship on the 15th of the month
  • members only video provided by the designing artist. It’s a class in itself! For my exclusive video, we’re gel printing with these stencils!
  • downloadable pdf with basic instructions to go along with the video for that month
  • a SECRET Facebook group for members only! A place to share, inspire and talk all about stencils!
  • Plus, as a StencilClub member, you are eligible to purchase ANY past month for the membership price.
  • StencilClub members receive a loyalty coupon code each month good for 20% off stencils in the public collection. And it can be used more than once.

You can see all the club details over at StencilGirlProducts!

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Building Up Grungy Layers

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Pattern making tools can be anywhere, including hotel bathrooms! The little shampoo bottle was an oval shape and it just called to me for some grungy printing playtime. Usually, I find round hotel toiletry bottles, and those are great too for printing, but recycling this oval bottle as a print tool was a treat.

What can you do if you have a bunch of open space on a print? Add another layer there! In the video, you see how each of these prints evolved from start to finish- and there are the hot pink prints too!

Want more gel printing fun? Check out my page of tips, tricks and tutorials here.

Here are the supplies used. Some of these links may be affiliate links which means I get a small percentage and it doesn’t cost you anything extra! And you get a really good feeling knowing that you are helping keep the free tutorials coming!


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Painting on Top of an Image Transfer

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What if you could transfer a pattern, design, or image onto a stretched canvas and then paint on top of it? You can with InkAid! As part of the process, you’ll see how to seal an image transfer and give it a matte look.

The InkAid process is used to transfer the image onto the stretched canvas. If this is your first time doing an InkAid image transfer, you might have some questions about so I’ve made a video guiding you through the entire process of making your first InkAid transfer step-by-step. There’s also a free downloadable guide there as well.

To seal or not to seal, that is the question.

Do you have to seal your image transfer? Nope, it’s personal preference. The big benefit of sealing it is that you can add layers of paint on top of it without anything smearing. In the video, I show you the difference sealing makes so that you can decide if you want to seal it.

If you choose to seal it with gel medium, the two key things are to use as little pressure as possible and to take as few “swipes” at it as possible. Using pressure or working it over and over will lead to some smearing.

How a transfer behaves if it’s sealed or not sealed

If it’s sealed, then you can add paint or watercolor or other mediums on top without any smearing. If it’s not sealed, then it can smear the image. On unsealed image transfers, if you use as few brushstrokes as possible and very light pressure you can do it somewhat without any smears. The video shows this better than my words express it.

Sealing it will make it matte.

There is a bit of shine to the image transfer once it’s dry. If you want a matte look, then seal it with a very thin layer of matte gel medium. That is my go-to way of doing it but it’s not the only way. You can also use a matte spray sealer. The key is for whatever you’re using to be matte. They both do the job, so it’s personal preference. The drawback to me of the spray is the odor and that I have to do it outdoors.

This canvas was sealed, so once the gel medium was dry, it was time to add some color! Having the image transfer on there made it almost like a paint by number- all I did was fill in the open spaces. Okay, technically not a paint by number since there were no numbers, but you get the idea.

Thinking about doing an InkAid image transfer? I’ve got a step-by-step printable guide as well as images for you use and it will get you signed up for my weekly newsletter, that has a new printable in it each week!

Want to see more image transfer ideas, then check out all my videos about InkAid here.

Supplies

Some of these links may be affiliate links which means I get a small percentage and it doesn’t cost you anything extra! And you get a really good feeling knowing that you are helping keep the free tutorials coming!


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