Gelli Art and VBS

WOW!  I knew it had been a loooooooooooooong time since I posted here, but didn't realize it was 2 months!  All of May and June have zippppppped right by, so we will leave it at that!  :D

I have been posting the craft projects over on facebook that the kids will be doing during VBS.  I'm having a really hard time deciding what the Juniors and Youth age will be doing.  I've changed my mind SEVERAL times!  I finally decided on a couple to begin with.  The one to be started on Day 2 of VBS is a bit involved, so I decided to explain the process here.

Day 1 - Juniors and Youth
A cute maze using gift boxes and straws from $Tree.  Each gift box will serve 2 kids.  I created the maze in my scrapbooking program and printed them out.  I cut up 4 straws for each maze.  Ended up buying high-bounce balls to replace the marbles I could NOT find for the project!

Day 2 Junior/Youth
Handmade Book

To learn more of what Gelli Art is, watch this YouTube video by Lindsay, the Frugal Crafter.  She shows what you do with this so I don't have to explain it!  Click here ---> How to make a gelatin place and prints (down in the right corner, you can click to get rid of the ad that will start).

So, I found these plastic trays at the $Tree and decided they were the perfect size for making prints.  So, I made this one last night and let it set up overnight.

So, I squirted a few drops of acrylic craft paint on the molded gelatin.

Next, I spread the paint out.  I really didn't have enough paint and it dried pretty quickly and I couldn't get it spread out quite the way I wanted it.  I wanted the colors to blend more.

The next step is to press your paper into the paint, grab a corner of the paper and lift the "print."
You can tell where I laid the paper.  You can also see some of the original drops of paint that were too dry to spread.  I forgot to take a photo of what the paper looked like.
Also, I found out pretty quickly that the center of the plastic tray was raised instead of laying flat and touching the surface of the desk.  Hence, the left over paint there in the center.  The paint would not release and the gelatin was very thin in that spot.

 

 Next I wanted to add some flowers.  So I used a hot pink and pale orange and spread it out quicker than I did the first time and the paint spread better.

I had 2 of the same stencils that I wanted to use for the flowers so the book would have matching front and back cover.  The object was to lay the stencils in the paint and use a piece of paper to pull up the paint from around the flowers to leave paint under only the areas of the flowers.

Here's the paper I used to pick up the paint.

Then I laid my paper for the book back down so the flowers would be on top of the blue, green and yellow background.  But, there was still too much of the orange and pink color left in the area where I wanted the paint to be removed and you can't hardly make out the flowers and my first background is just about all disappeared.

 This is the back side of the cover (inside cover).  This is showing the paint I picked up after I made the first lift with each set of colors.

 And this is just all the left over paint I pulled up to clean the gelatin mold off.

 So now I wait for the paper to dry before I work on the paper for the inside of the book.  I'll work on that tomorrow.  We will take 2 days for this craft.  I will be making some more gelatin "plates" to use during VBS so more than one person will be able to work at a time.  While some are making their covers, some will be working on their inside pages.

 I decided to melt down the gelatin and re-mold it using one of those acrylic box-type frames.  It is basically the same size as the green tray, but it is more sturdy.  I found the most level surface in the kitchen (the stove top) and poured the melted gelatin in.  It is setting up overnight.  I will be anxious to try it out again!