Happy Easter!

I love an excuse to play with my gelatin printing plate so I recently used it to make an Easter card.

Some acrylic paints work better on the gelatin plate than others. Through trial and error, I have found Pébéo Acrylics Studio High Viscosity paint work well. This paint is thick but easily spreadable with the brayer. Although the paints are now made in China, Pébéo is a French company established in 1919 in Provence, east of Marseille. At that time ready-to-use paints were not common, instead artists mixed up their own using pigments. The company got their name from the lead protoxide (PbO) they manufactured for use in paint production. It wasn’t until 1934 that acrylic paints were invented and it took a few years until they were widely used by artists.

I made a few versions of the of the same idea using an old promotional post-it note pad from the Egg Farmers of Alberta as a mask on the back of paper printed on one side. In retrospect, I wish I had added some white to the paints to create pastel colours. The end results were very bright.

Once I had my prints made, I chose my favourite and mounted it on Stampin’ Up paper I picked up at the Edmonton ReUse Centre. Last time I visited, there were a lot of scrapbooking supplies so I also got a sheet of “bunny hop” stickers from Doodlebug Design Inc. The stickers are dated 1984, so it’s amazing they still stick almost forty years later.

By using re-purposed paper and salvaged craft supplies, I can confidently say no bank accounts were harmed in the making of this card.

Before I added the stickers

I still had lots of printed paper left after choosing one for the card so I made an envelope to go with it.

If this card was a person, they would be thrifty, and have a more is more aesthetic, wearing very colourful clothes and too many accessories.