Festive Upcycled Lantern with Gelli Arts® by Marsha Valk

printingwithgelliarts

4 years ago

Hi there! It’s Marsha here today, sharing a fun way to upcycle a cylinder lantern or vase with the help of your Gelli Arts® gel printing plate.

Lanterns are a holiday decor staple at my house. They bring me joy when it’s dark, or the weather is outside is gloomy.

In the video tutorial, you can see me apply paint to the gel printing plate through a stencil, remove the stencil and then pull a print. You can also see me apply paint to the plate, add a stencil, and then pull a print.

There is no right or wrong way to use stencils on your gel printing plate!

However, with the first method, you have much more control over how the shapes or textures will transfer to your paper (or, in this case, Dura-Lar). So use this method to your advantage!

Grafix Matte Dura-Lar is a matte polyester film. You can try using (frosted) acetate or mylar instead. Unfortunately, vellum isn’t a suitable alternative because it tends to buckle and warp when you pull gel prints.

Don’t worry if your print layers look patchy. Patchy is perfect! It adds interest to the end result and ensures the candlelight can shine through the print.

It’s important to let every gel-printed layer dry completely before moving on to a new layer. If you do not wait, the print can smear, or the next pull can accidentally remove paint from your previously printed layer.

Once the paint on my prints was fully dry, I adhered them to a couple of lanterns I bought at a local thrift store. Lanterns or vases with a straight cylinder shape are the best.