Tetra Pak Printing (And Failing)

Tetra Pak printing plate (shame I didn’t clean it first eh)

Hi there, how are you?

No pretty pictures this week, we will just be seeing my attempt to print with a Tetra Pak carton, and failing.

Tetra Pak are the brick shaped cartons we buy in the supermarket containing things like fruit juice, milk and soup to name but a few.

I had watched a tutorial on printing with them and as luck would have it I was about to throw one into the recycling so I washed it, cut it open, dried it off and set to work. I do love an experiment.

The carton is long and thin which meant my design had to be too so I chose poppies, drew them out freehand and cut out with a small craft knife (possibly my first mistake) and made the printing plate above.

I’m using blue water based printing ink and yellow water mixable oil paint. I didn’t want anything too stinky and it’s easy to clean up.

The original idea was to push the ink into the gaps I’d cut out but it seemed hard to do so the brayer came out and rolled the ink over the top. Below you can see my three print epic fail, can you tell I don’t know what I’m doing?

The middle one was best but I didn’t work hard enough on the bottom corner with the wooden spoon so the ink didn’t transfer. The last one had too much ink on it.

First ever prints (it can only get better right?)

I had a brainwave what if I used my die cutting machine as a printing press. Surprisingly it worked although it took a while to get the sandwich right.

The two top prints in the image below were pretty rubbish so I wondered if painting over them with watercolour would work. The ink and paint do reactivate slightly but it was worth a try.

I really like the bottom left, that was what I had hoped my little prints would turn out like “sigh”, I also like the red poppies on the far right.

Playing with failed prints before and after.

This next one wasn’t supposed to be a print at all. I had placed a piece of scrap paper on the back to push the plate down into the left over ink on the palette, there was still ink on the brayer and it gave this sort of half print, again I used watercolour and a brush pen to finish it off.

An unexpected happy accident, before and after.

Clean up time; I sprayed the glass palette I was using with a mister and used scrap paper to take up as much ink as I could. This gave me a strange feathery ghost print, I love the texture so I will stick it into my sketch book as it is to remind me how I did it.

Ghost print texture

As I say no pretty pictures but I did thoroughly enjoy myself making lots of messes and I learned a load of things not to do when printing hehehe.

I will make another plate with the next Tetra Pak carton and using my newly found knowledge try again with hopefully better results.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun

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Christmas Crackers

Hi there. Christmas day came and went off successfully and we are all now very happy and very full. Hope your Christmas was equally successful.

The only hitch we had was Christmas crackers, as in some body forgot to make any, eeep. Luckily the kids came to the rescue and said give us some ”stuff” to make them and well do it.

I had hats, wrapping paper (from the many now opened gifts), toilet and used wrapping paper rolls (from the recycle box), a small box of wrapped chocolates and a small packet of cracker bangers. I put them in a small pile in the middle of the room and left them both to it.

This is what they made. No fancy ribbons paper or even dies. Just made the way we used to make them when we were kids (all those years ago).

We didn’t have jokes to put in so decided to all tell any joke we could think of, yes the jokes were terrible, worthy of any Christmas cracker we’ve ever pulled. We had so much fun doing this I think we may do the same thing next year.

Thank you for dropping by again, wishing every body all the best for the holidays. Till next time, have fun xxx

Snowflake Gift Toppers

Hi there. How are you. I’m not panicking yet eeep!

This week I have been making gift toppers, lots of gift toppers. The big wrap is coming and I wanted to get everything ready.

I used white gold and silver card plus some items from my recycling box (old wrapping paper and coloured envelopes from a recent birthday.) No point in throwing that stuff out when I can use it.

To start with I die – cut lots of snowflakes. The snowflakes were folded along the centre and the “arms” (if that’s what they’re called?) it gives them a little more dimension and shape. I stack them biggest on the bottom to smallest on top and the colours alternated so they stand out better. They are glued in place and put aside to dry.

The bases of the toppers in the first picture is a spellbinders Persian Motifs die cut in white card. The little stack of glued snowflakes are then added to the top.

these were the simplest to make and the largest. I also made some with smaller bases.

The base of the second set were made out of a piece of wrapping paper cut with a spellbinder strip die and a peace of blue envelope that had been folded into a concertina in line with the points of the die – cuts and cut at roughly 1 1/2 inch lengths diagonally so they are pointed at one end and straight at the other.

The two strips were layered on top of each other and glued into a circle which in turn was pushed down into a small rosette about 3 inches in size. To stop them from pushing back up again I glue a small circle of card on the bottom and weigh them down with a small coaster till they dry.

The little stack of glued snowflakes were again added to the top.

The third set were made from a craft coloured envelope cut with the same spellbinder strip die made into a rosette, a gold/silver die from the same set(Persian Accents), and a paper poinsettia on top. I explain how to make the poinsettias here, the only thing changed are the colours.

I put little gems in the centre to finish them off, cos you have to have bling at Christmas, that has to be a rule doesn’t it?

That’s another thing off the list of jobs to be done. I always think I’ve started early enough and it just gets away from me but “determined” is the word, have to get my head down and get on with it!
Thanks for stopping by, till next time, have fun x

Dies used:
Sizzix Bigz Die – Tattered Poinsettia
Sizzix Movers and Shapers – Mini Cardinal & Poinsettia
Spellbinders – Venetian Motifs
Spellbinders – Persian Accents
Spellbinders– Create a Flake #4
Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Festive Collection – Snowflakes
Embossing Folder used:
Craft Concepts – Budding vine
Spellbinders– Create a Flake #4