Gelli Plate Printing Tutorial

Posted on 6th August 2017 by Sylvia Ames
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Hi, Sylvia here with a Gelli Plate printing tutorial.  I bought my Gelli Plate a few years ago and it remained unused until a few weeks ago.  I started messing around with the plate and was amazed how easy it was to make background prints.  Distress inks are used in the tutorial but you can use all types of inks on the Gelli Plate. 

I used a Mega Mount to hold the plate, this is a large clear plastic mat like a stamping block.  This holds the plate and enables you to use the Gelli Plate like a very large stamp if you want to, you can also see the pattern you have created if it is turned over.

Before you start gather together all the equipment you want to use, you will need:

• Gelli Plate, Mega Mount or a craft sheet
• brayer
• distress inks
• stencils and stamps
• papermilldirect 250 gsm super smooth card to print on
• copy paper, baby wipes and kitchen roll for cleaning the brayer and Gelli Plate

Remove the plastic cover from the plate and place on a mount or craft sheet.  If using a mount place a piece of white paper underneath, this helps the ink on the plate show up.   Ink up the brayer with colour and roll onto the plate, it does not look like you have much ink on the plate but it is deceptive.  Clean the brayer by rolling on copy paper.

Place a stencil over the inked plate, ink up the brayer with a contrasting colour and roll over the stencil.  Carefully remove the stencil and reveal the pattern.

Gently stamp images onto the plate randomly using darker contrasting ink.

Place a piece of white card over the plate and gently rub to transfer the print, lift off the card to reveal the three layer print.

Lay a stencil on the plate and brayer a contrasting colour over, dab areas with paper to lift some of the colour the remove the stencil.  Place the three layer print over the plate to take a print of the stencilled pattern.

You now have your background to use as you wish.  Add stamping, blending and embellishments.

My print was used to make a card, the print was cut to size, the edges blended with distress ink, white dots added to the print with a white pen.  Stampers Anonymous flowers were stamped, white embossed, coloured and fussy cut before adding to the card.  The print was layered onto Lustre Print Gold 300gsm in magenta and smooth black 250 gsm card before adding to a large square white hemp card blank.

If you have a Gelli Plate and have not tried it yet, get it out and give it a go the possibilities are endless.

Sylv xx

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