Morning all, hope you had a fab Christmas. I know I did, lots of time with the Grand kids as well as time for myself, oh and Santa left one or two crafty goodies under the tree as well! I suppose most people are back to their everyday timetable now, schools are back and everyone seems to be hard at work, except us retirees! Now what day is it today?!! Anyway I know it's Wednesday the 7th January 2026 as my Blogger calendar says so!
As you may have seen over at Uniko we are celebrating the start of the New Year with a look at Bev's Ink and Flip stencils, such a fun and original idea. Today it's mine and Izzy's turn to share inspiration of our favourite stencil in the series. For mine I chose Mid Century Leaves, it's a simple stencil but so versatile as you can use it as a normal stencil or flip it over to get a more all over pattern. Here are a few ideas that I came up with whilst playing with my Gelli plate in that strange Twixtmas period. Grab a cuppa and sit back for I have a few makes to share!
The above graphic shows what the overall pattern you can get from the stencil looks like, each side a different colour but combined to give an all over pattern.
Gelli plates are really fun and enable you to get lots of interesting texture but still keep your designs clean if you wish. I'm afraid I've neglected mine and it has some weird marks on it that don't want to come off but they do add extra texture to the pulls. I've used the same colours in all the cards to give a sense of cohesion.
My first card uses the stencil as it was designed to, to create an all over pattern. I first inked my gelli plate with Distress Oxide in Twisted Citron, blending with a brayer before adding the stencil onto the plate. A piece of scrap white paper was then laid over the top and a print pulled, the stencil was then removed and a piece of white card added and a second pull revealled a lime green background with white leaflets. This card uses that second pull.
I simply replaced the clean stencil over the pull and inked through using more Twisted Citron DOx over the white spaces, then cleaned and flipped it before inking again with Picked Raspberry DOx. I chose to use Distressed Oxides as their opaqueness allows for the colour to be added over the top of the textured background without it diluting the colour. A line stamp from MCM Background Builders stamped in Rustic Wilderness and a sentiment from my stash using Doodle Flowers complete.
I added more green ink to my Gelli plate, Peeled Paint and Rustic Widerness this time, added the stencil and took a pull. As before I laid a panel of white card over the gelli plate and took a print. Using a clean stencil, I used two green DOxs to stencil in the leaves over my print.
I ended up with a textured green background and two shades of green leaflets, with enough space for me to add a small flower. This one is from the MCM Florals. I drew a few lines to make the stems with a green fine liner. The finished blooms remind me of a cheeky animal face. Once the panel was trimmed down, a simple circular gold sentiment on white and a mount of more Rustic Wilderness on a 5 x 5inch white base card completes.
I still had some ink on my plate so took another print and this card uses that. A paler green background but white leaflets where the ink had been pulled away a bit like the first card before I added the extra colour. This time I didn't flip the stencil but moved it down and inked first with Twisted Citron then moved down again and Peeled Paint was added. More space this time for a slightly larger flower, a simple stamped bloom, Flower Power #11 in Picked Raspberry, repeat stamped to create this panel. Once trimmed a slither of white card inked with Picked Raspberry was added to either side on an A6 note card and another sentiment from the stash added to complete.
I had lots of off cuts from all this playing so I used them to create a bonus card, I'd seen Ardyth Percy Robb do this on her You Tube channel. I sliced up the leftovers and arranged them on some card before cutting a circle from it.
I stamped and fussy cut HAPPY using Alphabet Outlined, from white card and placed the letters across the circle and then added a heat embossed white on black birthday. A few sequins add some more interest. The background was a pull that went wrong so I added more Rustic Wilderness and some Unchartered Marriner to my plate and took another pull, repeating until it was dark enough and the mistake covered! For more interest still, I debossed it with an dot EF, trimmed down to a square and added it to a 5 x 5 inch base card before adding the circle.
And relax that's all, but I have got a few more pulls that I have added to my stash so they may be used for projects later.
Please pop over to Izzy's blog if you haven't already to see which stencil is her fave and what ideas she's had. BAs Natalie and Steph are up tomorrow with their faves and Bev and Anita shared theirs yesterday or catch up with them on the Uniko blog.
As it's a special week, Bev is offering all of the Ink & Flip Stencils at 20% off this week. A couple of the stencils that are out of stock are available on back order too.
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