We Came, We Saw, We Printed!

Last weekend, we had a little informal Dirty Girl gathering in Southern Oklahoma - aka, Dallas - to do a little monoprinting.

I got to teach Sharon Harnist, Jeanne Streiff, Vicki Garrett and Bev Gerard a few of the things I'd learned in Linda Germain's workshop at the beginning of the month.

First, we made our gelatin printing plates on Saturday night after we got there.

If you've never done this, please note - unflavored gelatin is REVOLTING! It smells like DEATH. I've never liked flavored Jell-O, but I don't know how you could smell unflavored gelatin and ever eat the stuff again. So, while this method is cheap and relatively easy, I much prefer my GelliArts Gelli Plate. Poor Bev put in some hard time skimming the bubbles off those stinky plates. The good news is, they don't stink after they're set. Bev - I hope you forgive me.

Here are the girls showing off their plates after we got them out of the cookie sheets the next morning:

We got busy and inked up a storm, making stacks and stacks of prints - it was so much fun!!

It was exhausting though, so we had to take a lunch break at Mi Cocina with Bev's beautiful and talented daughter, Jessica Witty.

It's amazing how much better your prints get after some enchiladas, margaritas and hilarious company.

Now the cool thing about these prints is that even the ones that don't turn out exactly like you thought they would are beautiful when you cut them up for your journal or to use on a card.

I used one such print on my card for today's Mix-Ability challenge to do hand doodling on your card. The print was of a piece of beautiful grass that we picked as we were leaving Mi Cocina. It made lovely prints.

I just outlined it with my white gel pen, and then added the greeting from my NEW, sneak peek set from the upcoming catalog - Really Good Greetings in my NEW sneak peek GORGEOUS Baked Brown Sugar ink. SQUEE!!

How adorable is that scripty greeting??? I'm in love with that set.

And I know I never bring you two cards in one post, but I'm making an exception for the other card I did for today's challenge, with more Baked Brown Sugar goodness, and the new Wildflower Meadow stamp set and MATCHING embossing folder. How amazing is that? Again, I doodled in white.

You're just going to FREAK when you see the catalog - believe me. I had it in my hot little hands last night and it's AMAZING. So many fun things coming. I'll show you more peeks in the coming days.

In the meantime, I had such an insanely busy spring - something every night and weekend for months - that I've declared May to be the month of NO. I will not say yes to anything, and I'll work, and nap and organize and do whatever I want. In my PJs. So there. Don't even ask me.

Now go look at the gallery for today's challenge - it's incredible. Then get your pens out and get to work!

Loveyameanitbye.