GRAPHITE EMBOSSING

I first saw this technique used on a Facebook group I belong to and was amazed at how it could totally change a dry embossed background.  I used watercolour paper as I needed to be able to add colour after using the graphite paper and found the watercolour paper in conjunction with both Distress Ink Pads and Distress Oxide Ink Pads, worked really well to add that little pop of colour.  The graphite paper needs to be pressed graphite side down towards the paper before running through the embossing folder.  (Ask me how I know this?  Cleaning graphite off your embossing folder is not fun!)  I found by choosing embossing folders that didn't have a lot of flat spaces worked best for me.  Detailed ones work really well with this technique and you can use the graphite on either side (either debossed or embossed) to create two very different looks, depending on how much detail is in your embossing folder on each side.

"2020"

"Wild Side"

"Psychotic"

"Eraser"

"Memories"


"Untie the ribbons"

 

GELLI PLATE MARK MAKING

There are lots of different options for you to make marks on Gelli Plates.  I recently bought myself a set of kids dough rollers, basically a handle with a textured wheel on it.  It's perfect for making patterns on Gelli Plates.  I have also used Cake Scrapers before which are a flat piece of plastic with different edges on them.  The set I bought was 6 different ones with different cut-out edges to create various designs.  As with anything that you press onto a Gelli Plate, you must take care not to press into it as you don't want to cut it or permanently damage it.  Bubble wrap, sticky tape roll inners, plastic lids from bottles, the list is endless of what you can use to make your Gelli Plate pulls more interesting.  

 "Wander"

(A Cake Scraper made the wavy pattern on this one)

"Home"
(This one is a little hard to see.  Down the very bottom,
there are some squiggly white lines.  They are from one of
the dough rollers.)

"Dead of night"
(There are wavy lines on the sky made with one of the 
Cake Scrapers.  I also used a flat edged Scraper to
create the mountains down the bottom before doing
the first pull.  The moon is stamped in Versamark,
then dusted with Perfect Pearls.  You can only
see it if you tilt the card a certain way.  The black
tree is the Deco Black Flock on a die-cut.)

"Isolation"
(These squiggly lines are easier to see and are made
with one of the dough rollers.  I stamped and embossed
the trees on the background with Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze.)

"Now"
(The little dots on the background are from
the spot dough roller.)

"Leave me alone"
(Once again, the squiggly dough roller.
The shiny lines are made by using an embossing
pen and Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze.)