What a mess!

 I have been busy with some design team stuff - this is what my desk looked like when I had finished. Time for a tidy up I think.........

So desk clean (ish) I got out the gelli plate that caused so much mirth among my friends when I bought it at the NEC. I know little about this technique, my computer was playing up, so I couldn't search YouTube,  but I vaguely remembered that you put blobs of acrylic paint onto the gelli, so I squeezed generous blobs out...............

What's next? Ah yes, brayer the paint over the gelli plate. Cue: frantic search for a brayer. I know I have one, in fact I have two. One that is kept here in the UK and one that came over from the USA with the rest of my craft stuff. I have turned the house upside down and can't find one of them. I considered using my rolling pin, but on the assumption that, unlikely though it may seem, I may need it for pastry, I decided against that. So I used my fingers. Splodgy green and blue nails, not a good look, but never mind.......Note to self, I think less paint would probably work, and then I wouldn't get horrible blobs of green paint running down off the table onto my jeans......

Then I remembered that you are supposed to press stuff onto the gelli plate, like bubble wrap. Another house-wide hunt, not a scrap to be found, so I made do with the mesh thing that came with the dratted lovely gelli plate......

and the result. A muddy, horrible mess. Will I ever use these horrible artistic backgrounds? No way........

Determined to salvage something I tried again. By this time I had used a whole pack of baby wipes, and the paint had transferred itself to my face as well, or so Mike told me. It must have been when I was scratching my head in confusion....

This time I almost quite liked the result. I used hot pink, orange, and a pearly white Martha Stewart acrylic paint, then pressed a mask into it.  (Why I am giving instructions for this is a mystery, this is one project none of you are going to be interested in reproducing....)

I was determined to salvage something out of this marathon, so here is the card I made. Sorry if the picture is a bit dark, by this time it was so late the rest of the 
UK were all in bed - sensible people......

So the gelli plate has been packed away into a distant cupboard, probably to make friends with the two brayers that must be lurking there. There it will stay until I see some clever person doing something that looks so easy, and if the paint has disappeared from my nails/hair/jeans by then, I will have forgotten the trauma and will dig it out to have another go - if I can remember where I put it!

See you tomorrow x