Winter Trees

Alison's third challenge as host of the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is "Winter Trees"

I have used a gel press plate technique from Barbara Gray for these cards, even using the colours I've seen her demo!

It took a few tries to figure out the best way to get this to work for me, but I'm really happy with where I got to in the end. I also had another idea of what I could try as I was packing up, so more play to be done sometime.

I started with a very thin layer of paint on the plate, which more or less dried, then I added a second more generous layer and straight away laid my tree stencil into this, then the leafy swirl stencil over that.

I used punchinella (sequin waste) and copy paper to press onto the gel. This both presses the stencils down and gives a lovely dotty pattern in the paint.

Once the exposed paint was dry, I lifted the leafy swirl stencil, and allowed the paint under that to dry a little. Then I lifted the tree stencil and quickly put copy paper over to pull a print from the wet paint that was under the stencil.

I then added another layer of paint (cream this time) over the dry paint left on the plate, and pulled my final print onto card.

I love both prints! There were paint and threads left on the plate from the marbling last week, which added to the texture.

I repeated with two different tree stencils - these are all from Claritystamp.

Love this one, although maybe not that Wintery - I thought the trees had bare branches, but when I actually look there are leaves, and the colours are more Spring like.

Here's the gel plate while I wait for the exposed paint to dry for my final print.

Love this! Although the void needs something in it, which I didn't get to do this evening.

To finish, I cut the prints down to fit 6x6 card blanks, and edged with the darker paint and a green stazon ink pad.

I used the offcuts for the sentiments, stamping in green stazon.

I love this one, the trees are so delicate and form a lovely frame, even if it doesn't quite meet the brief.

I'm really pleased with how this print came out - unpredictable crafting, and maybe a bit messy for some tastes, but I love it. I've not used this stencil before, it was a freebie with a purchase last year, and I really like this design.


Winter Trees is a really great theme to play with, so many ways to interpret it. I'm looking forward to seeing what wonderful cards we have entered into the challenge. Head to 52CCT, you have until Friday 22nd February to join in.