Gel Transfer on Formica Chip

Golden Gel Medium is one of my favorite products. I most frequently use it for image transfers. For the project pictured here, I transferred a free image from Dover Publications onto a formica sample from the local home improvement store. I then applied metal leaf (another favorite product), and finished the tag with several pieces of decorative cord.

Inspire Me Thursday - Dear Diary

I'm coming to the table a bit late with my Inspire Me Thursday submission, but I didn't really expect to post anything this week. That's because the prompt is "Dear Diary" and I don't keep a diary. Never have. Sure, I've had diaries before, the kind with the leatherette cover and the tiny lock and key, but I never actually wrote in any of them. Maybe I was always afraid someone would read what I had written, and I would be exposed, and vulnerable. I was also expecting to skip this week because I've not been feeling myself the past few days. On Saturday I cleaned up my desk and my studio space so I could actually find things, but I still haven't been able to get motivated. There are just too many other things going on, and they're wearing me out. But when I finally arrived home last night from one of my usual evening activities (I really need to stay home more), I sat at my desk looking at my stack of lists, and was struck by the idea that, in a way, my list-making is a form of diary-keeping. You see, I make lists for everything -- creative ideas, things I need to do, websites to visit -- you name it, I probably have a list for it. All my lists are on scraps of paper, and they tend to get mixed up, or used for jotting down something else, and I end up rewriting that list. So, I remembered these tiny composition books (3.5 x 4.5 inches) I found at WalMart. And why not turn some of my collage and image transfer failures, which of course I had saved, into covers for my little books? You already know that I like to work small, and I enjoy making things to fix up my work area. Well, in less than 30 minutes I had completed two little "list diaries" and I think I've recovered my creative mojo. Sometimes, a little glue and some metal leaf will work wonders, and will help you get organized as well!

Inspire Me Thursday - Copycats

This week's prompt for Inspire Me Thursday is "copycats". I've been experimenting with image transfers, so I thought I'd share a couple of examples. For these transfers I used art from Dover, which I printed on plain paper on my laser printer, and applied it with Golden Gel Medium to some formica sample chips I found at a local home improvement store. Most of the color you see here is the formica showing through, although I added some Prismacolor pencil accents and some rubber-stamped crackling to the one on the right. I had planned on adding some gold leaf to both, but after an extensive search of my supplies, I couldn't find my metal leaf. After I seal these I'll probably use them as tags for collage.