Blog - In A Tickle

Kids Can Gelli Print Too

Posted on February 10, 2014 by JanMarch 1, 2014

The grandkids just got back from their three week trip and spent the day with me. Right away the two oldest asked: did I make a gelli plate while they were gone and could they try it today. Just before they left on the trip we watched a bunch of videos together about gelli printing. They were pretty excited about it and convinced it was something they could easily do.

While little sister was napping I showed them the basics of using the gelli plate and they caught on quickly. Many beautiful prints were created today by these young artists. If you have not tried gelli printing because you think it looks too complicated, be encouraged that my 6 and 4 year old grandkids were able to do it with just minimal guidance.After their prints dried they began using some of their art to make Valentine’s cards.Ninja Boy was proud of the gelli printed flag he made.

If you want to try gelli printing, read some of our earlier posts to help you get started. Have fun creating!

Gelli Printing Part 1
Gelli Printing Part 2
Gelli Printing Part 3
Gelli Printing Part 4

Snow Much Creativitity

Posted on February 7, 2014 by JanFebruary 7, 2014

This winter we have had so much of this…

And way too much of this…

We are beginning to share the sentiments of this little boy…

However there are people who are finding a creative outlet in all of this white stuff. Enjoy being inspired today by these amazingly creative snow sculptures.

Finger Knitting

Posted on February 6, 2014 by JanFebruary 6, 2014

Yesterday I shared with you my experience with arm knitting and wondered if it was possible to use the same technique with my fingers. I followed the same instructions but cast the stitches onto my index finger instead of my arm. It worked and was very awkward, but it can be done.I looked up finger knitting online to see what was out there. After watching a few videos, I realized there are several different variations for finger knitting and settled on the one that looked the easiest to me. I followed these instructions:

Here is my first attempt using a single strand of yarn.

The finger knitting creates a rope-like strand. I wanted to see what two strands of yarn would look like together and made necklaces with the strands.

In searching online it appears that finger knitting is an easy craft for elementary age children to do and fits right in with the popularity of the stretchy band looms. With finger knitting you don’t need any fancy equipment, just your fingers and strips of yarn, string or fabric to knit necklaces, bracelets, belts and more.

I decided to see what fabric strips looked like with finger knitting so I cut strips of this piece of striped t-shirt knit.The fabric strips were much easier to work with than the yarn because of their stretchiness. The thickness of the fabric yarn gave the knit strand a new look from the regular yarn.I made a necklace, adding a fabric flower and bow to finish.

Are you inspired to see what you can knit with your fingers and arms? Give it a try and include your kids and grandkids. You can’t use the excuse that you don’t have the equipment or materials needed. If you don’t have yarn on hand, cut strips of fabric or recycle a t-shirt you no longer wear and transform it into something new. With Valentine’s Day soon approaching you could make some beautiful, unique gifts. Let your creativity grow.

Knitting Needles? Use Your Arms Instead

Posted on February 5, 2014 by JanFebruary 5, 2014

Have you heard of arm knitting? I recently saw a graphic online saying “knitting is the new yoga” but I don’t think it was talking about arm knitting. Although after giving arm knitting a try, I think it might qualify since part of Google’s definition of yoga is “the adoption of specific bodily postures”.

I love scarves and started noticing some pins on Pinterest mentioning arm knitting. This week I decided to look into it. Years ago I tried to learn knitting, but just was not getting the hang of it. I think I was trying to teach myself and my love of crocheting was getting in the way. After watching some videos about arm knitting, I figured I could do it. I am trying to stretch myself this year in learning new things and knitting is on the list.

A young man named Andrea Brena began arm knitting and hand crocheting for a presentation at a design festival in Berlin. He makes rugs, pillows and chairs using high-end fabric strips. Here’s a short video of his work:

The Wall Street Journal recently did an article featuring the new craze of arm knitting. When you look online, you can find various videos showing you how to arm knit a scarf in as little as 30 minutes. I agree that once you learn what to do, you probably can make one that quickly. However, it took a few rewinds of the demos for me to get it– probably my mental block against knitting trying to confuse me.

It is best to use a bulky yarn for this activity. I did not have any but tried using regular yarn and it did not work. Since the guy that initiated this craze used fabric, I decided to make my own yarn strips with t-shirt knit I had on hand (which also added to my project time.)

I cut the fabric into approximately one inch wide strips from selvage edge to selvage edge so that when the strip is pulled it stretches and curls inward. This forms the “yarn”. I tied the yarn strips together leaving about an inch tail at the knot which I cut to make a fringe effect at each knot after the scarf was completed. Then I rolled the yarn into a ball to make it easier to work with.

I watched this post from Michaels to learn how to arm knit. In the video they are using bulky yarn that they double. I just used a single strand of my fabric yarn. I also made my scarf longer with more rows than they show.

Here are my cast on stitches. You can see the ends from my tied together pieces of yarn. They did not get in my way at all while I knitted. I don’t have any pictures of the stitches while on both arms because I couldn’t figure out how to take a picture with my arms tied together.

Arm knitting in progress

After I sewed the ends of the scarf together, I tied pieces of the leftover yarn randomly on the scarf to make more fringe. Here is the completed infinity scarf.

That was fun and now that I know what I am doing I think I will try another one. Got to practice my knitting, you know!

More Gelli Prints

Posted on February 4, 2014 by JanMarch 1, 2014

Just want to share some of the gelli print techniques I’ve been playing with this week. Check out our other posts about gelli printing and get started with your own gelli plate creativity.

Gelli Printing Part 1
Gelli Printing Part 2
Gelli Printing Part 3
Gelli Printing Part 4

On the following two prints the diamond shape was made using the bottom of a cardboard egg carton. The dots were made with textured craft foam.

These butterfly prints were made using a couple of chip board butterfly shape pieces with raised designs.

I decided to try using some sea shells to make texture designs in the following prints.Gelli printing allows you to create fun unique prints that you can frame as an art print or use the printed paper in card making, scrapbooking, art journaling or mixed media collage. When you print your own paper, it’s one of a kind. Give it a try!

Tree House Bunk Beds

Posted on February 3, 2014 by JanFebruary 3, 2014

Lots of kids dream of having a tree house. My husband decided the grandkids needed a tree house to dream in.

For many months he has been working in his spare time on this beautiful bunk bed project. It started last May with cutting and stripping the maple trees (which is an art in itself). It all has to do with cutting at the right time with the full moon and the sap flowing so the bark will strip off easily. Our garage became a forrest of drying branches until this fall when he started trying to figure out which branches would work for which parts of the bed. If you think it is hard to build with straight wood, try building with wood au naturel. He said it is like putting together a very complicated puzzle from the back.

As the bed began to take shape in our garage, he sent pictures to our grown kids who were excited and a little jealous. They wished he could time travel it back to their childhood.

After getting the pieces cut and fitted together the sanding began. A job which is not easy to do on round, knobby, curved wood. Then came coats of urethane on each piece. Since the arctic air descended on the midwest this January, the pieces had to be brought into our house for finishing.Finally the parts were transported to the bedroom of two sweet little princesses and assembled, glued, bolted, and given final coats of urethane. Now the tree house bunk bed is ready for mattresses, bedding and sleepy kids. It might be hard to find kids who want to sleep instead of play!

Documented Life Project- Weeks 4 & 5

Posted on January 31, 2014 by JanJanuary 31, 2014

The Documented Life Project Week 4 challenge was to write a secret message and then to paint over all but one key word.

Jan: The first thing that came to my mind was a very simple art technique we did as kids where we drew a picture with white crayon on white paper. Then we painted over the paper, and because the crayon resisted the paint, whatever was drawn with the crayon showed up through the paint. So I took a white crayon and wrote my secret message on white paper. It’s not easy to write words when you can’t see what you are writing! I painted over my secret message with watercolor paints. To highlight a key word (since ALL of my words showed up when painted over) I doodled some clouds over the word “love”.

Melinda: Since I have been traveling, I don’t have all of my art resources available to me. All I have with me is paper, pens, and pencils. I did purchase some colored pencils to give me more color options. I couldn’t paint over my secret message, so I wrote my message in pencil then colored over it with colored pencil. I decided that I couldn’t just stick with one key word and chose a key word from each verse that I wrote down. Then on top of the message I wrote the words that I felt like were the purpose behind these verses. I’ve been trying to do more doodling, so I doodled and colored around each of the words.

The only instructions for the challenge for Week 5 was to add a doodle border. As with all of the challenges, how that was to be interpreted was up to the artist.

Jan: I cut a piece from a gelli print I made last week with the letter “J” and glued it to the size paper I am using for the challenges.

I started doodling a border on the right side of the paper and then couldn’t stop!

Melinda: While staying with My Hubby’s grandparents, I was eating cereal one morning and saw this flower on the bowl. I liked it and thought it would be great for my doodling and drawing inspiration.

I started off doodling the vine border. I thought of the flower from the bowl, so I added that to my doodling. Because of my doodle, I wanted to add a quote about flowers. I googled fonts and found one I liked in Google Images and drew the letters as best I could. I liked the way it looked with just the doodle colored, but I have been trying to incorporate more color into my artwork so I am making myself practice adding color.

Don’t be Afraid to Make Dirt Angels

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Melinda PrinceMay 7, 2019

My daughters are amazing. They see a mound of dirt, and the joy that they can find in it is incredible. Quite often as adults (or at least I have), we look at the dirt and either 1) Think nothing at all, or 2) Think of how dirty it will make us, our kids, etc. if we were to touch it. All my girls saw was a ton of fun!

They made patterns in it with their fingers.

They made dirt angels.

And their sweet little footprints I will hold in my heart forever.

My Princess looked up at me from her play and asked, “Mommy, what is this?”

I replied, “Dirt. And I have failed you as a parent.”

I don’t beat myself up about it too much because they have played in the dirt in their grandparents’ garden, but where I come from, dirt is filled with rocks. This dirt was nice and fine. Perfect for pouring in your sister’s hair like Miss Tickles did. I am glad my kids got to experience dirt in a whole new way.

I guess the purpose of this post would be to remind you to tap into your inner child when you are creating and be willing to lay in the dirt and make an angel instead of worrying about the mess you will make or what someone else will think about you.

First Day Gelli Printing {Part 4}

Posted on January 29, 2014 by JanMarch 1, 2014

Pretty crazy that it’s taking me four days to show you part of what I did on the first day of gelli printing, but I did not want to wear you out by putting it all into one post! If you have missed the other posts you can read them now- {Part 1} {Part 2} {Part 3}.

I wondered what would happen if I used leaves for my texture in the paint on the gelli plate. Since my source of leaves right now is pretty limited, I picked part of a house plant. (If you notice paint on these leaves, I did not take the picture until I was completely finished.)

I covered the gelli plate with a dark red paint and pressed the leaves and stem lightly onto the paint. Here is the first print from that.

I decided to print the ghost print on this blue print I had previously made.

I love the way it turned out!

There was still paint left on the gelli plate so I made a third print from it.

I decided the paint left on the leaves needed to go somewhere so I opened a page in my sketch book and printed them on it.

That was so much fun I went out to the yard to see if there were any leaves I could use. I picked some ivy and a branch of evergreen to try. Here is one of the ivy prints. I printed some lighter yellow over one of those muddy looking prints I showed you in {Part 3} as you can tell from the side. Then I covered the gelli plate with dark green and laid my branch and various ivy leaves in the paint. Even if you print something you do not like, you can always print something else over it later like I did. What you originally did not like may add some subtle undertones that give your print depth.

Next I tried using the leaves as a mask instead of texture. I laid the leaves on the gelli plate and used a brush to paint dark green paint around each leaf. Then I printed that onto a previously printed paper. You can see the brush strokes.

I printed the ghost print onto another previously printed paper of brighter yellow and green colors.

There was still paint left on the gelli plate and this is the ghost print from that. I laid the paper down on it in different positions several times to get all the paint lifted. It gave the print a very muted unique look.

Lastly I tried the evergreen branches. They were rather sharp and left some holes poked into my gelli plate. So after I was finished with these, I washed the plate off, broke it up and remelted it in the microwave and reset it for another day.

Now I can’t wait for spring and all of the variety of leaves and flowers I can use with my gelli plate.

Well, I hope I’ve gotten you at least a little bit curious about trying to make prints with a gelli plate for yourself. There are so many videos on You Tube to help give you more ideas of the many techniques you can try with gelli printing. Watch a few. Make a gelli plate. Have fun creating!

First Day Gelli Printing {Part 3}

Posted on January 28, 2014 by JanMarch 1, 2014

I mentioned in {Part 1} about not rolling the paint too thick on your gelli plate but I did not show you why. Today you will see. I put some large blobs of purple and green paint onto the gelli plate and rolled them out. Because there was so much paint it turned into a mud color on the plate. I was tempted to wash it off and start over but decided to pull a print anyway to see what would happen.

In the top left corner (below) is the first print I pulled- not at all pretty and it took forever to dry. In the paint that was left on the gelli plate (and there was still a lot), I used the comb to make some lines and tried making some squares with a foam block. In the second print pulled below (shown on the top right), you can see more distinct purple and green colors as well as some of the lines and one square. The third print (lower left) is starting to look much better. You can tell I still had some dark blue paint and yellow paint on the plate from a previous print and it pulled off the gelli plate in this print. The last print was the final ghost print pulled.

I had seen some videos of gelli printing done using some stencils that covered the whole plate. I don’t have stencils like that, so I cut some circles from paper and laid them out on the gelli plate. I rolled blue paint over the paper circles covering the exposed areas of the gelli plate. After I pulled the circles off the plate, I added a little texture with the small dotted craft foam piece, letting some of the blue dots attach onto the circles on the plate. I printed this onto a previously layered print of dark pink, light pink, and green colored paint. I really like how this turned out.

You may remember the print I showed you in {Part 2} using the torn paper strips and bubble wrap (on the left below). I reused my paper circles one more time on the gelli plate, painted around them with green paint and textured the paint with my wavy craft foam. Printing the green circles over that print gave it a whole new look.

Cutting paper shapes works for one or two prints before getting too soggy. I may need to try cutting some basic shapes from thin plastic or acetate so I can reuse them. Stencils are great if you have them, but the advantage of separate pieces over a stencil is the ability to configure them in various creative ways.

In my next post, I’ll show you some nature prints I made with the gelli plate…

…to be continued in {Part 4}