Art Journals Created with Gelli Arts® Prints from Birgit

Hello and welcome to
the Gelli Arts® blog!

It’s Birgit here today
and I will be sharing with you how I create my art journals with Gelli Arts® prints.

I think I am not alone
in having piles and piles of prints that I have made with my Gelli Arts® gel printing plates and at some point I was wondering
what to do with all of them. The prints on thinner paper are of course perfect
as collage material but what to do with all those prints on the heavier
cardstock and watercolor paper?

So I decided to make
art journals out of them because the bonus would be no blank pages in my
journals.

So, how to go from
this…

To this?

Start with folding all
the pages in half. Be very precise, misfolded pages create a crooked booklet. Note:
all of your pages have to be the same size to create a book like this. I used
A5 (8.27” x 5.83”).

Now apply adhesive
tape to one side of the folded page. Go along all 4 edges and an extra little
strip in the middle of the page.

Now place your page
upright in front of you with the adhesive facing you. Then take a second page,
place it in front of the page with the adhesive and wiggle it between your
fingers to get it in the right position. Always make sure you work on a flat
surface.

When the pages are in
the right position press them together.

Now apply adhesive
tape to the second page, place the glued together pages upright and apply the 3^rd
page and so on.

Add as many pages as
you like. One of my books had 80 pages!

Now your book is
almost ready, you just have to add the spine and the covers.

To cover the spine I
use sports tape. You can get it in many colors and also white. If you want to you
can paint on it, stamp on it or even print on it.

Measure the length of
the tape and cut off a piece.

Take some gel medium
and apply it around the back of the book in the areas where the sports tape will
be going.

Place the book on the
edge of the sports tape. Then pull the sports tape to the front. It has to be
fairly tight around the back of the book.

Now take another print (same size as the pages you used for your book) and cut it exactly in
half. These two parts will become the covers of the book.

Apply adhesive tape to
the covers and some gel medium on the sports tape on the book. Then add the
cover to the book. Press down the paper on the gel medium until it is dry.

And your book is
ready! Now you can start art journaling in it!

Here are some ideas on
how to work on your prints:

Thank you so much for
stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and it inspired you to
create your own colorful art journals.

We would love to see
them, so please share using #gelliarts #gelliartsjournal.

Happy printing!

Birgit

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